Taking the Plunge

Since I moved into a house as an adult and had a garden, I've come to enjoy gardening. I love seeing bulbs come up in the spring, and I love trees, and seeing flowers through the season.

And I try to be at least moderately ecologically careful.

With that combination, you'd think I'd garden veggies, for sure, right? Except I don't, because I don't like to cook. Now, I'm perfectly happy to eat a salad. I'm pretty much happy to eat anything (except raw tomatoes, because they taste slimy). But cooking stuff, not so much.

I do like to bake cookies and occasionally bread, but cooking to cook, just doesn't strike my fancy. So having loads of healthy fresh greens and such, which appeals to people who like to cook, leaves me befuddled.

But yesterday, I was weeding. There's this one patch in my back yard, about 4' by 4' (with a bit more along the side of the lawn) that gets great sun, and grows weeds like nobody's business. And as I was weeding that patch, I finally thought to myself, "self, you should put something edible here."

Now, there are a few veggies I love, artichokes especially. And with my friend's help, I've got some artichoke plants in pots around the deck right now. (Cross your fingers for me.) To be honest, I could live on artichokes pretty much every day, just steamed with mayo or melted butter.

But other than that, I'm happy to eat whatever veggie-wise, but not so excited that I want to cook veggies or make them into a salad. I recognize that this is a horrid personal and moral failing.

I feel pretty good about asparagus, though, and will cook that if I remember that I have it.

And I love strawberries.

So I called a friend, and she sent me to the farm supply place she recommends and likes, and I got about 20 strawberries and 6 asparagus roots.

And then I put fertilizer and compost in, and planted. I got about half-way through the strawberries yesterday afternoon, before I was tuckered out. Only later did I realize that it was nearly 90F here, and so the dripping sweat wasn't just me being especially whussy. (I sweat a lot on my bike, but since I'm moving, it doesn't tend to drip onto my dark glasses. Sweat drops make it hard to see clearly, in case you didn't know.)

I got up and planted early this morning (I started about 7am) because I wanted to be done before it got so hot. But it hasn't really gotten hot today, just really, really windy.

Surprisingly, the plants I planted in yesterday's heat seemed to have perked up by this morning when I watered them. And I've watered the ones I planted this morning again this afternoon (since the wind is really drying). (It's almost as bad as the Sta. Annas, and those are horrid.)

Wish me luck in my new foray into food farming, even if it's only a little area. (My strawberries went far beyond my little patch, and are now intermingled with other stuff where I had some room. Mmmmm, strawberries.) It's supposedly going to take me til the year after next to really get some food out of either planting, but I can hope, right?

Computer Frustrations

Last week, we got a message from our admin assistant reminding us that we need to do our time sheets. It used to be that HR would email everyone their time sheet. Then you'd print it out and sign it, and the chair would sign, and then it would move into the labrinth over in the fort.

Then things got frustrating. First, they switched computer systems or something. And that means that if you're late with your time sheet, there's nastiness down the line. (We're also threatened with losing one of the benefits associated with our sick leave, which makes things even more frustrating. Thanks, Gov.)

Now, instead of getting the thing emailed to us, we get reminded to go find it in the system and print it out, and then on it goes.

So, last week, I went to print it out as I was supposed to. But I couldn't find it in the system, even though I've found it before. So I asked a colleague, and she couldn't find it, either. Then I asked our admin assistant, who's usually really good at stuff, and she couldn't find it.

So I called the help line. The help line worker was pleasant enough, but couldn't quite imagine how I could not find what I was supposed to find. So she did the thing where she can see my computer screen on her screen. (I love that, and am also a bit freaked out by it.) And she was surprised to find that I wasn't just crazy. So she put in a "ticket" to get it fixed and said I would have to go over to our HR office and talk to them, too, since there's some change on my thingy, but she couldn't tell what the change was.

After nearly an hour on the line with her, I went over to the HR folks, and talked to them, and no, they couldn't figure out what change had been made, but there was one. And then the thing worked, so I printed the form out and put it in my jacket pocket (since it was cold). And went home, thinking I'd go in and sign it and such on Friday. But I didn't.

Today, I remembered that I hadn't signed it, and since it's warm, I don't have the jacket, so I don't have the print out to sign. I went to my office (after spending two hours with the computer folks on campus getting my new computer set up with the campus stuff) to print it out. I went through the three or four clicks to get to my thing, and hit print, and then closed the thing and decided to look at my email, where I saw a message from our admin assistant letting us know that our copier (which is what my campus computer "prints to") is on the fritz, so we have to print to another computer.

I opened the thing up to print again, and it's gone. Yep, I'm back to where I was last week, except even more frustrated.

I hate computer stuff when it won't work.

(I just went to try to print out a blank form and then figure out the dates so I could fill it in, and now my form is back. Now I'm going to try to print it.)

The Blog that Ate the Upper Midwest

If you haven't read The Blog that Ate Manhattan, then you should. In addition to other stuff, esp women's health stuff, TBTAM blogs about eating in Manhattan. Recently, for example, she blogged about pickles. It was a cruel post, cruel because at the end, she put in a thing for where you can get the wonderfully delicious sounding pickles, and none of those places are within probably a thousand miles of here. But I'm trying to forgive that. Really. It's not easy, though.

But, in the spirit of eating good food, I thought I'd share some fine upper midwest dining. Let me introduce you to a local drive in. The only problem with the drive in is that they're closed all winter. There's a good reason for that, because winters here are mind-numbingly cold. Even for native mid-westerners who grea up doing slidy sports, winters are cold.

The car hop will come right to your car window if you'd like, but you can also eat al fresco on the picnic tables under the big tin roof thingy.

And, as you can see, this is not the kind of place you'd want to hang out when it's minus 20 and worse with wind chill. But, I promise you, this IS the kind of place you want to hang out as soon as it gets warmish.

I'll get to the food in a moment, but I want to get you in the mood, so here we are, looking from my seat over to the neighbor's lilac bush in full bloom, smelling gloriously wonderful. If there's nothing quite so wonderful as riding a bike along a bunch of lilacs, this comes close.

But we didn't come here for the lilacs. Nope, we came for the food. This place does fried foods, and it does them really well. Here's my friend's fish sandwich and garlic fries. Your mouth is watering, or should be.

And here's my dinner, what they call "loaded fries." Yummy fries with bacon, chives, cheese, and ranch dressing. (It's a good thing my bike took me on a 25 mile ride today, isn't it?) Yes, this drive in has heart-stoppingly good food. I also had some rootbeer, which was perfection. I skipped the ice cream, but it's always a treat, as are the malts. Mmmmm, fried foods.

This is such a local favorite that we weren't the only diners there, of course. Someone parked their kids just above our table, and kept coming in with more dinner for them. They were even hungrier than I was! (These are baby robins.)

And then we finished off the evening in classic midwestern style, with a hail storm.

So there you are, folks. Eat your heart out (or something) in the upper midwest. Incredibly yummy fried foods at a reasonable price, with dining in fine company!

I'd be pretty much willing to put this place up against any in a fried foods competition, especially for outdoor eating. It's just that good.

The Perils of Gardening

Ah, post-grading, when thoughts turn to other responsibilities.

This is one of my Tamarack trees. You'll notice that it's having a problem. The other Tamarack looks like the top half of this one.

Since it takes a while for Tamaracks to green up, the problem wasn't immediately apparent, though I wasn't seeing swelling little buds on the one at all, and only on the bottom of the other. And now that I've finished grading, I turned my attention to figuring it out.

I asked my friend who's a master gardener, and she said she didn't know much about trees.

Then I asked one of my neighbors in passing, a guy who gardens a lot and has planted a bunch of trees in his area. He didn't know, but suggested I ask at a local nursery that he likes a lot.

I went to the nursery and asked, and the nursery guy said that a lot of trees just hadn't made it through the winter this year, and lots were also very stressed from the winter. And he suggested that I try this liquid iron stuff. Handily enough, he could sell me a bottle right there.

I brought it home, and read the directions. It turns out you need to spray this stuff on the needles or leaves. That means I needed a sprayer.

I emailed my usual neighborly friends, the ones who let me play with their dog for puppy therapy, but she didn't know quite what I meant. And then I saw the first neighbor in passing again (he walks to the end of the street to pick up his son from the schoolbus every day, so it's not hard to see him in passing), and we talked about liquid iron and sprayer things, and he brought me a sprayer to use. He also warned me that he'd last used the sprayer for an herbicide, so I should wash it well first.

And I did. I hope. I rinsed it out twice, then filled it with soapy water and sprayed some of my weeds until I was bored, then rinsed it out and sprayed to get soapiness out. Then rinsed it again.

Then I measured exactly--okay, not so exactly--and filled it again, and started spraying. I sprayed my poor Tamaracks. Then I sprayed my birch, and then my two "big" pine trees. I had more spray left, and went down to the "prairie restoration area" and sprayed the poor little pine trees there. One of near a blue bird house, and I got to see a bluebird coming out, FAST! I hope my presence for a few minutes didn't scare it too much. (I didn't go nearer the box than I had to.) Then, I finished up with the maple.

So, now, I've either killed almost every tree in my yard, or not. We'll see. I don't have much hope for the Tamaracks. I don't know what to do about the half-alive one. I just hope that it has a strong enough root system that it will start a new bole.

I had a nice shower, put on fresh clothes, had dinner, and finally went to bed.

This morning, I was dreaming that the house I grew up in had a swimming pool in the dining room and I was swimming for some exercise, and then I felt something crawly on the back of my neck, just at the hairline. And I went to scratch and felt something, and instantly was awake.

What I felt was a tick. At least it wasn't engorged. But, EWWWW, I slept with a tick all night! EWWWWW!

I may never go outside again. (Not really, but I detest ticks. They totally gross me out, doubly so when they're engorged. EWWWW)

And of course now I'm totally paranoid about every little sensation.

A Short Aside from my Planning

I started reading Joseph Andrews last night.

OMG, 18th century prose!

New Toy!

My new computer came! It's so tiny and cute and bright and fun!

Planning a Class - Masterpieces

As usual, here's the course description: Studies major works of English literature from Beowulf (750) to Blake (1780). Includes such authors as Chaucer, Marlowe, Donne, Milton and Swift.

A bit of brainstorming. What to teach?
--I'm going to do some open brainstorming, and then add in hours. Figure 40 hours of instructional time for the course.

Old English
Beowulf - 3 hrs
"The Dream of the Rood" (w/ B)

--what other Old English works should students really know? (Given that I'm not a medievalist, and we have one semester to get to Blake.) These have to be in translation.

Middle English*
Marie de France - "Lanval" - 1 hr
Gawain - 3 hrs
Chaucer - "Knight's Tale," "Miller's Tale," "Franklin's Tale" -4-5 hrs

--maybe a drama?

16th c.
Spenser - Bk I of the FQ - 2-3 hrs
Marlowe - Faustus - 2-3 hrs
Poetry - Sonnets, and stuff: Shax, Wyatt, etc. - 3 hrs

--Would you teach, say, Lear, though there's a Shakespeare class, too? Any likelihood that students would be taking both? (Lear is 3 hrs)

17th c.
Jonson - Volpone - 2 hrs
Milton - Bk I of PL - 3-4 hrs
Behn - Oroonoko - 3 hrs
Poetry - Donne, Marvell, Herrick, Jonson - 4 hrs

18th c.
Swift - "Modest Proposal" - 1 hr
Pope - "Rape of the Lock" - 1 hr
NOVEL - thinking of Joseph Andrews, but need to read it soon! - 3 hrs
Poetry - Pope, and on up to Blake. (Please don't make me do Dryden!) - 3 hrs


Right now, I'm at 45 hours, counting the higher number for each text, so I could do this if I planned and prepped well, and held some things to fewer hours. (That's counting Lear.)

What would you add, and what would you give up to add it?

What would you drop? (I'm guessing a lot of students have seen "A Modest Proposal" in HS? Drop?)

What could you see me condensing or skipping?


*When I was a grad student, my grad school taught a massive survey to undergrad English majors. Chaucer was done in Middle English, and by all accounts, everyone found it miserable. TAs hated it, and students hated it worse.

When I was adjuncting there, I taught the (then required) upper-level Chaucer class and faced the difficulties of students reading Chaucer in that survey. First, they hated it. Every single person came to that class hating Chaucer. Second, they didn't bring anything about Chaucer or the tales they'd read with them to the Chaucer class. They remembered nothing except how much they'd hated it.

And so, I vowed never to teach Middle English texts in Middle English unless I had the time in the class to teach students to read Middle English well enough to enjoy the texts. Thus, anything I teach from ME in this class will be in translation.

Planning a Class - The 17th Century

Here's the course description: Covers prose, poetry and drama of the post-Renaissance period through the Restoration with special focus on works of John Milton.

The big focus in the description is on Milton. To me, that means we're going to read a fair bit (and maybe all) of Paradise Lost, and also want to read the big poems.*

The Norton has the whole of Paradise Lost, but no Samson Agonistes.

The Longman has chunks of Paradise Lost, but only Bks 1, 2, and 9 in their entirety. And it has Samson Agonistes.


I'm going to have to go with the Norton for the 17th century class.



*I have a true confession: I've never made it through Samson Agonistes. Never. Yep, I should probably lose my credentials for that. Maybe I'll give it a go this week, and see what I see?

Planning a Class - The Renaissance

A vexed title, perhaps, but there we are. I tend to look at the Renaissance as being, perhaps, a "long 16th century," from c. 1485 to 1603. I recognize there are problems with that. And I tend to try to include people who didn't have what Petrarch would have seen as a "Renaissance" at all.

Here's the course description: Studies Renaissance English literature emphasizing works by Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Bacon, Jonson, Bunyan, Marvel, Herrick and Donne.

So it looks like they go a little later than I probably would, since I think of Marvell as being 17th century (he's not born in the 16th, even).

The problem with this class, and it's the same problem with pretty much every class, is that there's a whole lot more great and wonderful literature than there is time to read it with undergrads in a semester. I remember as a grad student having a book titled, Silver Poets of the Renaissance, or something, which was meant to imply that these weren't actually the "good ones" but they were still pretty darned wonderful.

That said, there are some things I think are really important.* (I'm going to mark which of the anthologies has each piece, and if appropriate, which section. L=Longman, N=Norton)

More's Utopia (L, N)

Spenser, FQ (L has Book I and part of Bk II**; N has Bk I, part of Bks II and III, because who can do without the Bower of Bliss?)
--Both have October of the Shepheardes Calender, a smattering of Amoretti, and "Epithalamion"

Sidney, Apology (L has some other poetry stuffs in response; N may only have sections)
--The Arcadia (L has Book 1, N has Bk 2, Ch 1)

Locke/Lok, sonnets (neither has the sequence. What a shame!)

Marlowe, both have Faustus and "Hero and Leander"

Jonson, both have Volpone
--N has The Masque of Blackness; L has Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue

Lyly, N has a blessedly short excerpt of Euphues.***

Other Ren Drama: L has The Roaring Girl

Other: N has a tiny part of Nashe's "Litany in Time of Plague"

The selections of women's poetry and poetry in general is pretty parallel, as are the selections of writings on philosophy, religion, and education. L has a section on gender.

Now I'm off to read some of the introductory material and headnotes, to see how they compare.

General introduction: the Norton is more literary, and gives a nice background to basic political and social changes. The Longman is more social, and gives more context and less political stuff.

Comparing the introductory material and notes to More's Utopia, I slightly prefer the Norton. It's a bit more complete feeling, giving a bit more background to information. For example, rather than just identifying the future Charles V, it says that Charles and Henry were in dispure over "Dutch import duties" (524n1). Does that matter to students? Maybe not, but it helps me.

The paper quality of both is pretty good, certainly better than the tissue they used to use in the Nortons.

Finally, the Longman 4th edition 1B is $49.20 (I have the 2nd edn, so I'll have to check that things haven't changed much. Oops!)

The 4th edition has The Alchemist, not Volpone, for example. And it adds Beware the Cat!!!

It has the FQ Bk VI. Really?

The Norton 8th edition (which is what I have been looking at) runs $42.50.


So far, then, for the Renaissance class, the Norton is looking slightly better, though, Beware the Cat!!!


*And when I say really important, please take that as shorthand for "I think reading these works will help students gain the skills and cultural knowledge that will help them be able to read further in the field and have a good undergraduate grasp of what was going on in English literature and a little bit about what was happening in England in the period."

**I remember the first class discussion I was part of on Bk II, the professor quoted someone famous as calling it a very pedestrian book. Who was that famous critic?

***Yes, I know I'm in danger of losing whatever credentials I might have for that comment.

Planning a Class - Calendar

A couple weeks ago, I posted about maybe sharing some class planning strategies. And now that I've turned in my grades, I thought I'd start working on that.

I'm hoping that I'll put some thoughts up, and you folks will share your ideas to do things better, and then maybe we'll all benefit.

I haven't taught the classes I'll be teaching in England, at least not in this sort of format or for a long time. That means I'm starting pretty much from scratch. So I start out looking up three things.

1) I look up what the school says the class should be or do.

Here's what the catalog says for the three classes I'll be teaching:

Course 201 - Masterpieces of English Literature I (3) Studies major works of English literature from Beowulf (750) to Blake (1780). Includes such authors as Chaucer, Marlowe, Donne, Milton and Swift.

Course 301 - The Renaissance (3) Studies Renaissance English literature emphasizing works by Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Bacon, Jonson, Bunyan, Marvel, Herrick and Donne.

Course 302 - 17th Century (3) Covers prose, poetry and drama of the post-Renaissance period through the Restoration with special focus on works of John Milton.

At my school, I can go into the course files and look at the original course descriptions and such as well, but this is what I have for my fall semester. I also have access to a previous syllabus for one of the courses.

2) Figure out the basic calendar for the semester. I do the calendar only for teaching days (and the occasional other day if it seems important). I do out a calendar for the whole term. Here's what mine starts out looking like for fall:

Teaching schedule:
Course 201 - MTR - 2:10-3
Course 301 - MW - 11:15-12:30
Course 301 - MTR - 4:10-5

Calendar:
Week 1
8/29 - Mon- Classes begin
8/30 - Tues -
8/31 - Wed -
9/1 - Thurs -

Week 2
9/5 - Mon -
9/6 - Tues -
9/7 - Wed -
9/8 - Thurs -
9/9 - Fri -

Week 3
9/12 - Mon -
9/13 - Tues -
9/14 - Wed -
9/15 - Thurs -

And so forth.

Since I'm the sort of person who needs to see things on paper to do my planning, I print out a copy of the calendar for each class. I do each calendar up for the specific days for each class by cutting out days I don't need for the class.

3) Now I have an idea about what the school wants the course to look like, and what the calendar looks like. I start with one class, and think about what text(s) I want to teach for that course.

I'm looking at two anthology groups right now, and am planning to choose the one that works best for all the courses. Happily, both anthology groups come in physically smaller texts than they used to, so you can choose the ones that will be best for a given course, and not have, say, the 18th century for a medieval course in the same anthology.

One possibility is the Norton Anthology

The other possibility is the Longman

Thoughts about which you'd choose and why?

Let's start with the 16th century "Renaissance" course!

Disconcerting Narrator

I've read several of Kazuo Ishiguro's books before, so I picked up When We Were Orphans for the car (I play CDs of library books in the car).

There's something about the narrator, perhaps his total delusional self-centeredness, that makes me want to smack him upside the head, so to speak. I'm at a point where he's gone back to Shanghai, where he'd lived as a boy until his parents disappeared (and he was sent to live with an aunt in England), as an adult, 18 years later, and he's trying to solve his parents' disappearance.

But he's trying to do this against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion/occupation in the mid-30s, and he just doesn't seem to get that after 18 years, it's pretty darned unlikely that any kidnapper would keep his parents alive, and also that the war might just be more important than his parents (especially since 18 years is a long time to be missing). How do you tell soldiers who are on the very front line that they should drop what they're doing (trying to hold the line) and help you sneak behind the line to find where you think your parents were 18 years earlier?

The book is weirdly set in a world where there are famous detectives, not fictional detectives (though, of course, they are since this is a fiction), but within the world of the text, real detectives. And I'm just not buying it. I bet very few people could name even a couple detectives for their fame in the real world (as opposed to fiction). Yes, I can probably still vaguely recall some LA detectives because they were witnesses in a couple of cases. But they aren't known because they were really good detectives. (The ones in the OJ case, for example, seemed to have botched some stuff. And the ones in the Rodney King case did worse.)

I'm guessing I'm about half-way through, and I'm trying to decide if I should just be done or actually finish. I rarely give myself permission to stop a book before I finish. What's stopping me here is that Ishiguro is generally worth the effort. Is this one, though?

In other news, I haven't finished grading, but I did read Water for Elephants and it was GREAT! You should all read it.

Yes, I am working slowly on the grading, too.

Where to Begin?

I got an email recently from someone who says his daughter is in high school and wants to teach high school English, and wants to ask how UWEC can help her achieve her educational goal.

When I read this, I get the feeling that someone has told this person to ask how whatever college can help his student achieve his/her educational goal. It just feels canned.

And so I'm not quite sure how to answer. What I'd really like to say is: you need to step back and encourage your daughter to take the initiative. If she's interested in what we have to offer, she should contact us. If she's interested in doing well in school, she should take the initiative to study hard and learn well.

At the same time, I recognize that parents are anxious about their kids' futures and trying to do their best to help them in whatever way they can. So I do try to answer helpfully, but I'm never quite sure what's helpful in this case.

Things I Don't Get

I turn on the TV to grade, and after a while, I'm just sitting here gape-mouthed in a combination of horror and disbelief.

There's a show about people who use a lot of coupons. And by a lot, they're talking thousands of dollars worth. Of course, it takes a lot of time, so basically they're doing coupon organization and usage as a full-time job (or more).

The thing is, they seem to have these huge storage areas, and tons of food (and other stuff) that don't seem to meet their needs. For example, one woman has a bunch of sleeping medicine that she doesn't use. But she's really happy because she saved a lot of money buying it.

The thing about this show is that the TV folks go to the store with the women (they both seem to be women, so far), and then there's this huge stressful thing where they worry about whether they'll meet some goal they've set for the day. Right now the woman is aiming to go shopping for $400 worth of food. The show is trying to build this huge drama around whether a coupon is going to work or not.

But it's not like she's getting stuff that looks great (there's a huge load of candy because there's a coupon for it), and she talks about making her kids eat breakfast cereal they don't like because that's what she has a coupon for.

But what's the point of buying stuff just to buy stuff if you aren't going to at least enjoy it? (I totally understand living on ramen or whatever if you're on a really tight budget, but these women aren't buying ramen.)

And then there's storage. How much does it cost to build all those shelves and such?

See, told you I don't get it. I want to have as little drama at the grocery store as possible. (I also make it a goal to enjoy the food I buy, and not waste much.)

That's almost an hour of grading I didn't get done. Gah.

Bardiac v. Nature

Bardiac sad.

Look at what's happened to my Tamarack! My other one seems totally dead. I don't know what I did or didn't do, or what to do now.

This is what my poor pine tree looks like now. (You can see that it's sporting a pie tin. All the best pine trees are wearing them in my yard.)

Unfortunately, I didn't get as close up for this one as I did for the one before, but you get the idea.

This is what the same tree looked like 9 days ago. In the newer picture, the tree looks like it's dripping sap all down it. I'm hoping this means that the pie tins are effectively scaring the sapsuckers off from keeping the wounds open and eating the sap, and that eventually the sap will crust over and the tree will start to heal. The year after I first planted these two trees (there's another, but it isn't as badly wounded, so I haven't put up pictures) some rabbits ate at their bark the first winter, and it two a good two years before they really healed over. I guess trees heal and grow slowly, but hopefully live for a long time.

Here's a picture of the other side of the tree. Those mean old birds really went after it.

Grading Queen

I powered through a bunch of grading today. Seriously, we're talking from 8am to 4:40pm almost straight through, power grading. I finished the stuff I was working on and was able to turn them back, which is always good.

And now I should go home and either sleep or grade some more, but I'm sort of sitting here in a tired daze.

I have another stack to finish to turn back on Wednesday, and a final to write for Wednesday morning, and a stack of finals I got today, and a stack I'll get on Wednesday.

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's too soon to tell if it's a train or not.

In better news, my Mom got out of the hospital yesterday, and is making a much better recovery than any of us really dared hope, including the doctor. Thanks for all the kind and supportive words about my Mom. I appreciate you folks.

Non-Linear

If all were fair and good in the world, then learning would be linear. You'd learn something, and then always build right onto that. And then you'd build onto that. And you'd be able to take what you've learned in one context and apply it in other contexts.

Alas, all is not fair and good in the world, and learning is very non-linear. This can be frustrating for students and instructors alike.

For example, you can take a fairly advanced college English major, one who seems totally able to cite correctly when writing a paper, one who's been practicing citation all semester on short assignments, and give that student something different in an assignment, something just not quite what they've done before, and kablooey! s/he forgets all about citation.

And then s/he appears in my office, upset at having failed an assignment in large part because s/he didn't cite appropriately and protesting that s/he always cites usually.

I sometimes think that the hardest parts of teaching are trying to get students to carry what they've learned in one class or context into another, and conversely, not wanting to smack students upside the head when you realize that they haven't carried what they learned in one class into the new one. (The urge to smack students upside the head is especially strong when you've taught them something specifically in the earlier class because it will be helpful in the later class, and you've told them as much.)

It's especially frustrating when they give you that look and say, "but you didn't tell me I had to cite!" And then I want to say that I didn't tell them to wipe their ass when they were last in the restroom, either. But I don't. Listen, you're in an upper-level English literature class. I shouldn't have to tell you to cite your sources. It should be second nature, like wiping your rear.

This is the frustration of the day, brought to you by the letter F.

You Need This

Trust me. You need a laugh, you need this: Better Book Titles.

One of my colleagues was looking in my office and we were laughing out loud. Someone is probably starting rumors about us already!

Adjunctification

I'm on this committee, one of many. This one's pretty busy though. One of the things we've been busy with this year is approving and dropping courses. We've approved 100+ courses. We've dropped about 15 courses.

Hmm. I bet you're thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of new courses! They must be hiring or have hired a load of new faculty!"

That's not the case, so far as I can see. Yes, we've done some hiring in my department, but no new lines. In fact, we have a couple of lines that are supposedly ours, but we don't have authorization to hire warm bodies to fill them. And we used to have some lines that are no longer ours. Buhbye.

So now you're wondering just how we're going to teach all these cool new classes and the ones we've been teaching all along. There are two ways: one is to teach the old classes less frequently. Let's imagine there's a 14th century underwater basketweaving course on the books, and then we've decided to add a course on special topics in 14th century underwater weaving practices. I could move from teaching the old course every year to teaching it every other year, and then teach the new course in the intervening years. That makes sense sometimes.

But that's not what's happening in most of these cases. Nope, in some of these cases, there's some special funding for distance ed courses under a special thing to make money on distance ed (which the administration says it will on one hand and it can't possibly on the other hand). So for those new classes, a faculty member will teach the new class and not teach the old class. But, you're thinking, what about the not distance students who need the old class?

We do what they call around here "backfilling." How's that for a vile metaphor? What it means is that we'll move the tenure line faculty member (a PhD in this case) who's teaching the new course out of a section of Intro to Underwater Basketweaving and hire an adjunct with no job security (and around here, probably not a PhD) to teach the Intro course.

For all the questioning, and the "oh, no, we won't need new resources" about these courses, we've added, say 25 courses a semester and made almost no new tenure line hires to teach them.

The deanling in charge was quite proud of this.

I feel like there's nothing to do to retard this charging stupidity in the slightest, and it only stresses me out to be on this committee. And I so very much want off it! Please let me off! (I have a couple more years of it, though. FML.)

ps. Yay Blogger is back. Boo I lost a couple of posts, I think.

The Good News

Not cancer, according to the pathology report. That's very good news. Yay!

Stoppage

I have a stack of assignments to grade. And so I start. My habit with an assignment like this is to read through several, and get a feel for the lay of the land, writing marginal comments, and then set about grading. It's not ideal, perhaps, and it would be different if I made up a rubric, but it does give me a sense of how well I've communicated the assigment to the class.

And the first paper, pretty good.

And the second paper, abysmal. It's horrid in all the ways an upper level college paper shouldn't be: it doesn't say anything, and when it uses sources it just puts in the information and then lists the sources below, rather than indicating which source has to do with which information.

Bleargh. I'm frustrated, so then I checked facebook, and looked at some blogs. And then I graded another, and it's almost equally abysmal in many of the same ways, with a bonus of all website citation.

At that point, I thank my stars that I get to talk to a new major who's enthusiastic and pleasant.

And now I need to turn back to grading. But I have no momentum, or worse, backwards momentum. Looking at the names, I'm pretty sure I've read the two worst assignments, since they come from a couple of students who are pretty intellectually uninvolved in the class.

It's hard to restart when you've started with a couple of really crappy ones, you know?

I need an intervention!