Listening to Robinson's Home

I've been listening to Marilynne Robinson's Home in the car recently. (I generally have two audio books going at a time, a CD in the car and a casette for bedtime. The other right now is Sandra Cisneros reading her own Caramelo which is just great so far. I love the way Cisneros uses language.)

I'm about two thirds of the way through Home and I'm of two minds about it. It's really well written in a lot of ways. It's interesting, and I want to keep listening, mostly. But the reader is a little irritating in the way she does the father's voice. Or maybe I'm just irritated with the father.

The NPR site has a bit on an interview with Robinson from way back in 2008, in which she talks about the novel as a retelling of the Prodigal Son parable from Luke.

Robinson says she chose the parable of the prodigal son as the central theme of the novel because it is so powerful. She sees it as story about love.

"It's about the fact that love is not earned," she says. "[It] is one of Jesus' most radical parables because it completely overturns all notions of deserving, all notions of how you are scoring relative to other people in life." [Source at NPR]

I think there's a lot in that quotation that piques my irritation.

In the novel, Robert Boughton, an ailing, aging, retired preacher, awaits his son Jack's return, and then deals with their interactions; the story is told through a third person narrator with the eyes of Glory, one of Boughton's daughters who has returned home to care for her aging father. From Glory's point of view, Jack has always been a much admired big brother who was also always a trouble-maker. He's been gone from home, where he never felt he fit in, for 20 years, and now has returned for a visit of some length, while he tries to figure out his relationship with a woman in St. Louis.

I think I find Boughton irritating because he seems to think his kids, specifically Jack (but let's not ignore Glory's contribution) owe him a whole lot of subordinate obedience, specifically with respect for Christianity. There's a really interesting scene where Jack and his younger (and much approved) brother Ted talk about Jack's desire to tell their father something that will please him, that he has faith in a Christian God. But he doesn't really, so Jack feels he'd be lying on a deep level.

There's also a really fine undercurrent in the text about race issues in the late 50s or 60s. Jack's been in St. Louis; there are hints (so far, I haven't finished) that lead me to think that the relationship Jack's trying to figure out is with an African American woman. At any rate, he consistently thinks about race issues and tries to reconcile his father's and Ames's (his father's old friend) racism with their Christianity. He clearly has read and thought about religious issues more deeply than his father.

I think those two aspects of Jack's character are what make me find him appealing; he's thought deeply about whether he believes in Christianity and he's thought about how wrong racism is. So while he's an alcoholic and detached from his family, I find myself thinking I'd much rather meet and chat with him than with Boughton (even when he was younger and less self-centered.)

So, with the Prodigal Son story from Luke, the son is basically a wastrel and takes a chunk of his father's wealth and wastes it, then comes home to be welcomed with a party. Robinson says she sees the important thing as love not being earned.

Here's the problem. Children shouldn't HAVE to earn their parents' love. Parents have no right to expect their children to be permanently subordinate and obedient, especially about matters of ethics. That's not an equal relationship; ONE side of the relationship made a choice and the other had no choice. (I'm not trying to say that children should be horrible to their parents, of course, but trying to make the point that parents don't own their children the way Boughton seems to think he has a right to Jack.)

Boughton's self-righteous, selfish, self-centered attitude is really irritating me.

I can't decide if that means this is a really great novel or not.

What doesn't Count

I just had a conversation with a student (from my writing class) about what classes to take next term. The student's a first year, who declared as a major right off, and so has a major advisor. Let's just say that major is as far off from English as it's possible to be here at NWU.

The problem is, after taking the intro course in the major, s/he's not sure s/he wants to study that field. And when s/he went to the major advisor to talk about what to enroll in next term and get the enrollment computer thingy, the advisor wasn't as much help as he might have been. Basically, according to this student, the advisor pretty much said, "this is what you need to take next term for this major," and when the student told him s/he was thinking of changing majors, the advisor basically repeated the same thing.

Okay, I know the advisor's another faculty member and busy. I recognize that. And I'm guessing the advisor wasn't quite that abrupt. But the student ended up in my office for a reason, and it's not because I'm warm and fuzzy.

But still, here's a student who's a first year student, and what s/he needs is a little help exploring and figuring out what sort of major s/he wants to pursue. Most of our students seem to change majors a couple times, so it's not like this is a once in a lifetime issue. It's going to happen, and more than once. And to be honest, it's healthy for students to change majors and explore.

For early on in a student's career, basic advising involves talking about exploration, general education, and opening up opportunities. I ask a few questions about what the student's taking, what s/he enjoys, what sorts of things s/he wants to learn about. I listen and take some notes. We look at class offerings and schedules.

So we had a nice conversation and figured out what looks like a reasonable schedule; there's one more advanced class the student seems well-prepared for and several introductory classes that will serve for exploration and general education. The student seemed pleased by the possibilities and interested in the courses, and also has a couple classes to look forward to in the fall.

As pieces of the job go, this one's sort of important. But you know it doesn't get marked on my "good job" list by anyone, nor does the other advisor lose anything by not caring what the student's doing. The thing is, it's not that hard to do a good job with little advising things like this, and it makes a difference to a student who needs some help. It's one of those things that's important enough to do well, but not counted, like so many other things.

Disappointed, but not Surprised

My senior seminar students are peer editing tomorrow, so they were supposed to post their drafts to the campus system by 5pm on Saturday. That would give them Sunday to read each other's papers and be prepared to give feedback.

I'm disappointed to see that only 2/3rds have uploaded a draft. I haven't looked at the drafts yet, so there's room for even more disappointment, I suppose.

On the other hand, I'm really glad that 2/3rds at least have something draftish to post. That's a few papers that are likely to be reasonably well-written, right? (Hey, indulge my fantasy! It's all I have!)

Really the News?

The network evening news opened tonight with a story about a golfer's car accident (no fatalities, a few thousand dollars of damage) and the couple who went to the state dinner without an invitation.

Seriously, folks, those are the lead stories? We have our priorities totally out of whack, don't we? Does anyone really care about the golfer's car or whatever? Or is this yet more evidence that I'm totally out of step with the broader culture?

The St. Petersburg train accident came in third.

Meeting of Musical Minds

There used to be an old TV show where the host (Steve Allen?) would have guests on pretending to be famous people sitting around discussing whatever.

I want to invite Tom Lehrer and Arlo Guthrie to a den with a piano, acoustic guitar, and a tape recorder.

Better yet, if I could invite them in their early 1070s incarnations.

For Sale

I check my inbox each day for blog comments; they cheer me when they're there. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

But every so often, I'll get a spam comment from a company selling "research papers." I got a couple of those today, so I clicked over, hoping there was a way to do something about it. There may be, but I didn't really look long enough to figure it out because I started seeing basic grammar and punctuation errors in the ad copy. The grammar feels off in the way it does when someone who's pretty good at English as a second language sometimes writes. The basics are there, but just a bit off.

Sadly, students who are most likely to buy a paper from that site are least likely to notice the errors, I bet, or to proofread the paper they buy.

I looked at their pricing, and it seems a little out of reach for a lot of my students, so I wonder who's buying these. (Yes, my students mostly have ipods and such, but those are one-time purchases. If you're doing the research paper purchasing thing, I bet you aren't doing it just once a semester.)

The pricing gets more expensive as the time gets shorter, so for a 24 hour turn around, it's just under $25/page, but for a one week turn around, it's about $15 a page. A 5 page paper, with a week's turn around is about $75.

I'm not in denial that some of my students will plagiarize or buy papers, but I can't see them affording these prices often. (I think most of my students' plagiarism is the quick grab off the web, cut and paste without fixing the font even, with a smaller helping of "hey, my roommate has a paper on that topic from last semester!" thrown in to keep things interesting.)

Who's writing these papers? Seriously, if you think of a page taking half an hour or less with no research, then I can imagine lots of folks being willing to do it. That's $30 an hour at the worst, and if you have the university of Google, then even the "research" isn't going to be that difficult (not like you'd actually have to take out the books; you just list them). But if there were actual research involved, then even $25 a page is a poor way to make much money. Once you have to get up from your computer and actually go to a library, there's no point. So I'm guessing the papers are written somewhere with a lower wage structure than the US. That would fit with the non-SWE feel of the site. There's got to be profit in it and customers, or they wouldn't stay in business, right?

Not Quite a Stick Figure

Name that famous text!

Teaching a New Text, Part the First

I started teaching a new text yesterday; it went pretty well. But it got me thinking about how I approach teaching new texts. I'm sure most lit folks teach new texts periodically. And by "new" I don't only mean "written within recent history," but also "not yet part of the teaching canon."

At the end of my grad school teaching, I had the opportunity to teach a seminar for English majors, so I chose to teach something on early modern women or something. One of the texts I tried to teach was Elizabeth Cary's Tragedy of Miriam. Let's just say, I did a miserable job of it.

First, I hadn't been taught at all to read early modern texts by women. I hadn't had any classroom experience with closet dramas, even. And as a very inexperienced teacher, I didn't have a lot of strategies for dealing with such texts; I mostly had the example of what I'd been taught, with a lot of dissertation research on the side.

(I'm sort of ashamed to say that I've never had the guts to go back and try to teach Miriam again.)

When I check my sitemeter thing, I regularly see someone hit my blog searching how to teach [some text], so I know other people struggle with how to teach new to them texts, too.

I'd like to start thinking about how we're taught to teach, and what that means when we teach new texts, and also articulate some strategies for teaching new texts. I hope you folks will tell me about your experiences and talk about the strategies you use, too.

Another One Clicks the Mouse

I finally broke down and joined facebook. I searched for one of my aunts, and used her friends to ask some other people to be friends; then I did the same with a couple friends.

I was feeling far from family and college friends out here, so I did it.

About the first news I got was that my cousin is recovering. From what, I wondered, so I dropped my Cous' a line, and learned that Cous' is recovering from a heart attack. A HEART ATTACK. My cousin. My cousin who's a few months older than I am and way nicer. So I'm sort of freaked out. This is one of those cousins who's just a really good person, kind, thoughtful, caring, smart, funny, fun. A heart attack. I'm glad Cous' is already recovering, or I'd be worried sick.

I wonder if my Mom knows or would remember to tell me if she found out.

On the happier side, now I've gotten friend thingies from some of my college pals, and it's so good to see their pictures and just see how they're doing. I've been scrolling back a bit to catch up.

When did we all go so gray?

It's sort of weird to put together this friends list thing from different parts of my life. There are the family folks. I have enough cousins to make plenty of friends. There are college folks. Some of the college folks know some family folks. And grad school folks. Then there are gaming folks; it's funny to add them because I tend to think of them as their avatar names.

I haven't friended any work folks yet. Nor have I looked for students. I'm thinking I'll keep my facebook pretty basic, and any students who want to friend me, fine. They'll look at my page for half a minute and be bored.

I'm guessing people who just start a facebook thing mostly go through this, but I'm at the stage where you stare at the screen and hope someone will appear to chat.

I feel totally clumsy about figuring out facebook. I'm grateful that I haven't drowned in Surefall or fallen off Kelethin to my death. But it has that same feel of total newness in a weird way.

I Am

... a total pushover.

I accepted a nomination to chair this committee. The alternatives seemed, well, one person would have done a good job but is already chairing a major thingy or two. Another would have, but is junior and shouldn't be exposed. The other two, well, I wouldn't really want either chairing a committee to take out the garbage.

... in deep trouble.

Tomorrow, I'm teaching a text I've never taught before, or even actually finished reading. I'm almost finished, but that doesn't mean I feel adequate about teaching it. I had a good reason for choosing it, but now that it's hear, I'm not feeling any too good about things.

Sometimes, my blog gets hits from people doing searches for "how to teach [some text]." I can guarantee, I'd get no hits at all if I did a search on this text. It's not that it's a bad text, either.

... irritated at a colleague and none too happy.

Ten Ways To Drive Students Crazy

Sometimes students make us crazy. It's true.

But often enough, instructors and professors drive students nuts as well. Here are some few of the ways. Feel free to add your own!

1. Have a sexual or dating relationship with a student. This may seem okay to the one student, if s/he doesn't feel that s/he's forced, but it's still creepy. To other students, it's obvious that the one student is going to be favored in ways that will disadvantage them. Extra points for flaunting your relationship in front of the whole campus.

2. Grade erratically. Don't tell students what you expect on an assignment or how to do better. If you can use the stair method in front of your students, all the better. Don't tell students what a grade of 16 means, what scale it's on, or how much the assignment counts for in the course.

3. Consistent lateness. The prof who always comes in ten minutes late is bad enough; when that same prof holds the class ten minutes late to "make up" for his/her lateness, that's close to criminal. Or at least really, really rude. And, of course, be absolutely firm that you don't accept student work even a minute late for any reason whatsoever.

4. Miss office hours or blow students off. This is most effective when you've been busy with your favorite student for an hour, while other students are lined up sitting on the floor hoping for some help. And then you just don't have time to talk to those students. Double points if you can decline to talk to the students with a sexist or racist comment thrown in.

5. Don't hand out a syllabus or assignments. Just give information verbally at some point. Or not. And change your mind about things several times for maximum unclarity.

6. Wait forever to grade papers. Procrastinate until the end of the semester, and then just assign grades randomly. If you can blog about procrastinating, all the better.

7. Don't respond to emails or phone calls, even if you're sitting in the office while they're on the phone. Double credit if you're avoiding an advisee who needs a form signed before the deadline and s/he's been trying to reach you for three weeks or more.

8. Complain endlessly about how hard you work and how underpaid you are. Complain especially loudly while standing in the store where your student works as a checkout or stock clerk for minimum wage. Extra credit if you hire a student worker to clean your house or babysit your kids but don't pay even minimum wage because you're so devastatingly underpaid.

9. Teach from your own text, which you "update" every year by changing the pagination and one or two illustrations. Otherwise, make no changes in your lectures, because really, it's not like the laws of physics have changed in the past billion years or two.

10. Make rude comments. Comment on your students' tattoos, especially if you can talk about their "tramp stamps." Note that some students are just stupid or whatever. Tell female students that they shouldn't worry about grad school or grades or whatever because they're just going to get married anyway and it's a waste of resources to teach them anything.

Joy

A student who was in one of my classes before came by to talk about a Herbert poem just now; she needs to write on it for another class, and wanted some help.

Herbert totally blows me away. In a way, I'm surprised by how deeply I love some of his most religious poems though I'm not Christian. I admire how difficult folks such as Herbert and Donne found Christianity; for them, it wasn't about easy answers, but about grappling with the complexity and difficulty, and working through it.

And Herbert, well, Herbert works through it so incredibly playfully and seriously.

I have the Medieval and Renaissance Text and Studies facsimile of Herbert's The Temple, but being a drama person mostly, I rarely think to pull it out and read, so today I pulled it out and showed the student. And now I want to reread Herbert. (That may partly be avoidance thinking about grading, however.)

Persistence

I just spent some time helping a student find some early modern texts. S/he'd "looked" but hadn't found many on the list s/he'd put together from another resource of texts that might be useful. And so I helped.

There are tricks to finding early modern texts. You have to be willing to play fast and loose with spelling, and switching "v" and "u" typographically (along with "i" and "J" and "w" and "vv"; the name "doubleyou" makes a lot more sense when I think about "u" and "v" being different back then.)

But the most important trick is that you have to be willing to try this and that in different ways; you have to be willing to bang your head about the search engine (and praise be for search engines, because it's softer than banging my head against a card catalog!) for a while.

I know my students have to learn to be persistent about research. But these are the same students who probably parse their dps in WoW or tell me the exact ERA for their favorite pitcher or tell me exactly which shade of nail polish J.Lo wears. The information they care about, they'll put in the time to find or figure out.

The good thing is that I get to feel a little useful.

Those Stepping Stone Assignments

I think a lot of us who teach writing in various forms have developed stepping stone assignments along the path for bigger essays. For example, we might require a research question(s), bibliography, annotated bibliography, response to an essay, abstract, draft(s), and so on.

In theory, these are a great idea. They do help students avoid procrastination at least somewhat.

But when they all pile on my desk, even if I just need to take a quick look and put a checkmark, they really add up.

Eep.

Moving

I taught the first day of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun today, which means I reread it just before teaching to prep. I've liked the play pretty well since the first time I read it, and I've found it wonderful to teach, but it was even better this time. I was pondering my response, since I was almost in tears in my office (you should see me when I merely pick up a copy of Cyrano). I think the thing that's changed for me is that my father has died, and I've seen my mother's loss, and I've thought long and hard about what it means to get and/or spend money left through someone else's death. (My Great Aunt also died and our family friend Hillis.)

There's a scene in the play when a white man (Karl Lindner) from the neighborhood "welcoming committee" comes to the Younger apartment to convince them to sell the house they've just gotten a mortgage on rather than moving into the all white neighborhood. When Lindner comes to the door, the husband and wife, Walter Lee and Ruth, are dancing to some music, and Walter Lee's sister, Beneatha, answers the door. She turns to mouth to the couple dancing that there's a white man at the door, and they turn off the music and recompose themselves before Walter Lee introduces himself as the man of the house.

I think there's something absolutely brilliant in that little moment. There's an African American family, just relaxing and being a family happy for having bought a house, and then a white man comes, and the family immediately stages itself anew for this white audience, this white interloper. They suddenly play at being "respectable for a white audience" and drop the sense of homeness.and relaxation.

And Lindner is coming to tell them that it's not a racial prejudice issue, but the whites in the new neighborhood really don't want a Black family moving in. His insistence that it's not a "racial prejudice" issue brings out the racial prejudice point, of course.

And then we step back. Here we are in the audience, probably, in 1959, and maybe even today on Broadway, a mostly white audience, watching an African American cast stage itself for us in a play by an African American woman (and originally directed by an African American director, I think). We're watching the staging of blackness, the performance of blackness, and it redoubles the experience because the play stages blackness for a mostly white audience, and that blackness is about respectability and what it means to be Black in a white dominated society.

I love metadrama, where a play talks about itself as drama, or talks about all our experience as being dramatic. But this moment goes beyond that pleasure and really asks the audience to think about the staging of blackness and what it means to play blackness in a white theater tradition. We get to see what seems on one level to be a "real" African American home, but it's a staged African American home; we can't get the real in the theater, but we're reminded again of how much staging is often involved in our relations, especially between members of dominant and non-dominant groups. We're asked to identify with Lindner for this passage, and to think about our own racism, too.

And yet, of course, on another level, it's not really about me at all, right? If I imagine an audience made primarily of people of color, then I can't put my white dominant self at the center.

I love when a moment in art can totally make me feel and think at the same time, when it moves me to sadness and anger and hope and thoughtfulness.

Late Adopter

In the senior seminar, the students are (I hope) hard at work on their papers. At any rate, they have a stepping-stone assignment due tomorrow, so yesterday we were talking about paper writing strategies.

One of the strategies I picked up during grad school, when I began word processing on a computer that could actually open two files at the same time (Go Amiga!) was to have a second file open while I was writing, and every time I'd use a reference in the essay or chapter, I'd tab to the second file and add it in to the work cited list in the proper alphabetical order. That meant that I wasn't trying to figure out the works cited at 7:50 am to turn in at 8am.

So, I was telling my students about this and suggesting they could also use something such as Endnote, and one of my students raised his hand and asked why I don't use the function in Word that handles works cited.

I'd never even noticed that, but it seems to be new with the new Word program! And it's cool! We played with it for a few minutes in class (I can project my computer screen in the classroom) so that everyone knew the basics of where to find it and how to get started. Other than that one student, none of them seemed to know about this function.

They were laughing at me because I was so excited. Indeed, there was no hiding my excitement. (They all should have been equally excited.) I'm just a nerd. Except I'm a late adopter nerd, which is really unimpressive.

How did I miss this? Laziness is part of it; I just use what I've used as long as I can get away with it. I still do control keys mostly, because I type a LOT faster if I don't have to move my hand to the side to use a mouse. But I also looked, and my old Word program on my laptop has nothing like this, and I do a lot of word processing at home. (My computer at home is from 2002, so it's got whatever program was available then.) Is it worth trying to upgrade a 7 year old laptop? Could it even run the newer program? (A new laptop is not in the budget.)

Naive at the Theater?

Some of my students recently went to a play we'd read for class and then wrote a response to it. Some of them are acting majors; others have never been to the theater before, so there's an interesting range of responses.

A couple of the responses talked about how helpful it was to go to the play after they'd read it, because they got so much more out of it. And that response got me to thinking.

Pretty much all plays are written for an original naive audience, that is, and audience that hasn't read the play. It's unlikely that folks in Shakespeare's audience had read a play before seeing it. And today, the first audience for a play probably hasn't read it.

So there's a sort of very special occasion when the audience hasn't read the play. Yes, the audience likely knew the story of Henry V well before they saw it; and the opening of Romeo and Juliet pretty much gives the plot away anyway, but seeing it would still offer surprises. But it's still a very special occasion; no one knows the jokes ahead of time or is waiting for their favorite line. No one is dreading the Macduff household slaughter or waiting for Hermione's statue to come to life.

I've never been part of an audience at a play opening like that; I can't even imagine the excitement.

I have been to plays I hadn't read and didn't know. I remember going to Cyrano, the first play I saw (as part of a junior high school, take the kids to the big city for a matinee program), expecting that Cyrano would "get the girl" (because that's how TV always worked), and then... well, I won't tell you what happens.

When you haven't read the play, you get certain pleasures in the surprises, in the turns, in the language and staging, and I don't know that you can get quite those pleasures if you've read the play before.

On the other hand, if you've read the play, you get the pleasures of anticipation, of thinking about how the production reinterprets the play for you, how embodying the characters changes everything from your imagination.

I have a vague sense that the difference is bigger for students who haven't seen many plays before than for those who've had more experience seeing plays. What do you folks think?

Marginal Comments

First Paper: Interesting idea; will your readers agree? Develop this point to greater depth. Cite your sources, please. Do you have evidence?

Second Paper: Cite your sources, please. Gram: dangling modifier; come ask and I'll explain. Number your pages, please. Develop this example further? Good point!

Third Paper: Is this your thesis? Evidence? Good example. Cite your sources.

Fourth Paper: Interesting, develop? Number your pages, please. Indent new paragraphs.

Fifth Paper: Thesis? Gram: run on sentence; use a semi-colon or a connecting word. Cite your sources. Can you develop this point further?

Sixth Paper: Develop example to bring out your point. Gram: fragment; use a comma to avoid the fragment. Number pages. Gram: dangling modifier; come ask and I'll explain.

Seventh Paper: Confusing sentence. Number pages. Cite sources. Gram: run on sentence; use a semi-colon or connecting word.

Eighth Paper: Thesis! Cite sources. Gram: fragment; use a comma. Number pages.

Ninth Paper: Gram: run on. Number pages. Evidence? Gram: dangling modifier. Really? Indent Para.

Tenth Paper: Example? Gram: fragment. Can you develop this example to make the point stronger?

Eleventh Paper: Cite sources. Evidence? Dev. point. # pages. Dangling modifier.

Twelfth Paper: Gram: frag. Cite. Dev. Example? Indent.

Thirteenth Paper: Cite. Ev? Run on. # pages.

Fourteenth Paper: Cite! Frag. Dev? Ex?

Fifteenth Paper: Thesis? Frag! # pgs. Really? Cite! Indent!

And, now I'm half-way done with the stack.

More Lit

(Does it help if I acknowledge that this isn't early modern?)

(Maybe if I redid the speech thing to say, "Meine begriffsstutzig Kindern!"?)

Stick Figure Game!

I have a feeling his arms wouldn't fit within the Da Vinci circle figure thing. He's got what climbers call a positive ape index (or something like that).

Nonetheless, this is the lit of the day! Enjoy!

Missing Notes

As part of my ancilliary duties for being stupid enough to offer to be secretary to a rotating committee I got put on because someone else refused to do his/her job, I get to be chair of another committee. I seriously would not have offered to be secretary of the other committee if I'd known, because it's a change, but oh well.

This is the "Oh Hell the Future is Upon Us, Crap!" committee, which is responsible for worrying about the future of the department. The Oh committee, as I'll call it as part of my rebellion against the ever-increasing acronyms around here, is actually supposed to do some important stuff, stuff like making decisions (or recommendations to the chair and dean) about tenure-line hiring.

I waited to get this committee going this fall until we'd had our meeting with the new Assistant Headmaster about where things are going; we had that meeting, and now we need to get started deciding where we want to go, strategically and tactically.

So, I made up the agenda this morning; if you've done committee work, you know that the first thing on the agenda of most committees is approving the notes of the last meeting of the committee. At NWU, we keep our notes on an alphabet drive, so I went to the alphabet drive, and found the committee folder (I love the idea of a computer folder, by the way).

The last thing put in the folder was an agenda from spring 2008. Yes, spring 2008.

There are no other minutes or agendas (ae?) for the whole of that academic year. None. Nada. That means there's no record of the decision to do our last round of searches, no record of a decision not to search this fall, nothing. Did the committee meet last year? Got me.

This lack of committee records is pretty common around here. It's like people think that they were at the meeting and that's all that matters. But every so often, it really helps to be able to look back and see what was done, what issues came up, even in the most sparse and undetailed way.

I don't think this is about hiding things, but about being lazy and careless, but it irritates me nonetheless. The longer I'm around, and the more I need to lead committees, the more irritating it is. (I'm sure I've been guilty of not getting notes posted, too.)

Professor Fail

I'm reading along, and I get to this:

X: What hast been -- of what profession?

Y: A bone setter.

X: A bone setter!

Y: A bawd, my lord. One that sets bones together.


I'm not getting it. I get the idea that a bawd puts bodies together, and that bodies have bones, and Y has been carrying around his dead fiance's skull and all.

Is there more to the joke?

(The OED shows "boner" in the sense of an erection first in 1962. Bone-ache as a sign of STD is recorded in the 14th century, but that seems to be about whole-body bone aching, rather than sexual.)

Recommendations Rant

I'm writing recommendations today.

Back when I started, I could pretty much do a set of recommendations in an hour or two. I'd start by writing a letter, and then I'd fine tune the letter for each of the schools by changing the address and the name of the program as I'd print out copies. Even so, to get the first page on letterhead and the others not (if more than one page, which most aren't) means I have to print each document twice, making sure to change which tray the paper comes out of on the printer, then go to the printer in the department office, collate and make sure the right pages were together, then type an envelop (because feeding an envelop from another room doesn't seem to work well), and go back to my office to do the next one.

Now, half the programs want a standard letter and half want me to fill in something special via the web. I CAN cut and paste, but the specificity of the questions means that the basic letter I've written won't necessarily cut and paste well. Yes, the paragraph about how long and in what capacity I've known the student basically does, but the others, not so much.

Each grad school has it's own web thing (if they have it), and the web thing sends me an automatic email about how to get in.

And every automatic email gets read by our system as spam, so I have to check our spam box to make sure I don't have vital emails dumped in there. (I still get a variety of male-oriented medication and enhancement ads in the regular in-box, though, and also a really enticing financing offer from Nigeria.)

One of my students has complicated things a bit by not deciding what sort of grad program s/he wants to go into yet. Imagine, for example, a biology undergrad who can't decide if s/he wants to go into a PhD program in crop-plant genetics, or one in large mammal wildlife management, or maybe med school. How much do I tweak the letter for each? Do I talk about my experience teaching this student's microbiology lab? Do I talk about their project in deer population control through culling? It's like that.

Part of me enjoys this student's limitless enthusiasm, but part of me worries that s/he doesn't really have a sense of the commitment it takes to do graduate work and keep plugging on at a dissertation through all the funding hassles and hoop-jumping. But then, I sure didn't know how much commitment and just plain stubborness it would take for me to get through, and here I am.

It does feel awkward to be doing two separate recommendation forms to different programs in the same department at the same grad school, though.

I guess I should get started and quit complaining.

Dangeral Studies

Like many colleges and universities, we have some fields of studies that aren't actual departments, but field offices. Unlike departments here, field offices don't necessarily have a separate budget, staff support, an office (yeah, the irony), representation in governance, etc.

There's an idea over in the administrative fort that we should combine all the field offices into a single department.

Historically, our field offices got started whenever someone would recognize that there's an interdisciplinary field and we're not doing it but we should, but we don't want to put any money in, and besides, faculty from all different areas across campus can teach in the field studies, because "we" don't actually recognize this as a real academic area worthy of funding and tenure lines.

Typical field studies offices have names such as: Black Studies, Women's Studies, Asian Studies, and so forth. You get the idea. They represent marginalized groups that suddenly got recognized by white administrations in response to some state or federal funding opportunity or mandate.

So, now the fort wants to combine them all into one department. It would, so to speak, give the fields a "chair at the table" for governance and funding decisions, and that would be good. On the other hand, it makes little sense to combine these disparate fields into one department. That difficulty is easy to see when you try to think of a name for the department.

Here are some we've come up with: Department of the Othered; Department of Not-White Men.

My favorite plays with Michael Berube's Dangeral Studies; imagine, a department of Dangeral Studies! The white male Marxists would clamour to get in! Heck, maybe someone from chemistry who likes explosives could teach a team teach a special course in activism!

Think of the reaction over in criminality studies! And over in business!

A Poem for Grading

Nor the wit nor the wile
But the size of the pile
Most engenders despair.

Historicity

My campus is having a "15th century" dinner in "the spirit of Elizabethan times," including potatoes and coffee.

Claude Levi-Strauss

One of my students told me today that Levi-Strauss had died.

I feel so far out of all loops; a student told me because we were talking about theories of desire. I hadn't heard about it in the department or anything.

Ranting about Profs

I occasionally check a discussion board from an on-line community I used to be part of, mostly to see the old names and what folks are up to. Most of these folks are younger than I, and right now there's quite a rant up from one member about a horrid college prof s/he has. Of course, a couple people then responded by adding their own horror stories.

Some of these stories sound really bad; others sound like a prof said something a bit uninformed, and the student knows better, and now thinks the prof is an idiot. I know I've done that. (What the heck was the 30 years war really about? How did it start?) (And, to be honest, don't a fair number of 18 year olds think older women are idiots anyway, just for existing and not doing their laundry?)

But when I think back, I can think of maybe two or three profs I had who were sort of bad, but no horror stories. I had a prof for Fortran who basically read off overheads for every lecture; our text was a photocopy set of all the overhead slides. Not great, but I did manage to learn some Fortran. Then I had a genetics class for which the profs (one of whom is very famous) basically lectured from their textbook, complete with slides taken from their textbook, in a large, darkened lecture hall at 1pm. It wasn't that they were awful or uninteresting, but everything combined to make it hard to stay awake. (You know these folks are all doing the same thing in powerpoint now, right?)

I had a couple others who were boring, or worse, got off topic and went on for a bit about other stuff. (I avoided enrolling in a class where the prof was reputed to spend 45 minutes trying to take roll.)

But true horror stories? Nothing I can think of that would qualify. But maybe time has whitewashed my memory?

I feel sorry for the folks on that board if their profs really are that bad. And I know one poor prof can stand out even though most are pretty good.

Three Students

I met with a student about his/her research paper. The assignment asks students to come up with a real world question, for which they don't already have an answer (that's key), do research to answer the question, and then write a paper.

The student started off telling me that s/he had an idea about X and planned to look around and find support for his/her idea.

I tried again to explain that if s/he already thought s/he knew the answer, then it wasn't really a research question, and that the way humans are wired, if we start out looking for the answer we think we know, we'll inevitably find that we're right. That's why science is set up, at least theoretically, to remind people to look for ways to disprove the answer they think they have.

I think the student really "got" some high school practice of deciding what s/he thought about something and mining for support. What I'm saying just isn't getting through. It's gotten through to some of the students, I think, because they're asking real questions and being at least a little suprised at the answers they're finding.

***

I got a call from someone who wants to audit my Shakespeare course next term. I said the person was welcome as long as there are enough seats and spaces in the room. I thought that pretty much ended the conversation, but no, the person rambled on about how much they love Shakespeare and on and on, for a good fifteen minutes. Now I'm wishing I hadn't said yes. (But, I've had some auditors who were great, and it's all part of my nefarious plan to take over the world for Shakespeare and biking.)

***

A couple of years ago, a student in my first year special program class completed the assignment to go to two student organization meetings by going to a residence hall meeting; the student became his/her hall representative to the student government, and has continued in student goverment. S/he's passionate about classwork, student government work, and being involved in making things work as well as they can.

We had coffee yesterday, and a nice chat; students such as this one are the reason teaching is worth the low salary and hassle.

I like to think I had some small part in this success story. And when s/he's the governor, I'm going to point and brag.

In the Deodorant Aisle

Dear Parental-Seeming Person,

I recognize that it's really hard to keep control of your four or five year old in the store. I can't tell you how to do it; my inability to figure out such things contributed to my decision not to have kids. Alas, it didn't do so for you.

But seriously, maybe you could just pick up your kid and prevent him from opening at least one deodorant stick of each type, pulling off the plastic guard thing, touching the deodorant and putting the stick right up to his snot-encrusted nose for a good sniff.

Maybe it's time to recognize that telling him repeatedly not to do that isn't working and actually take some action, now, while you're bigger than he is and could actually pick him up?

Best, B

PS. I'm really hoping you two weren't in the veggie aisle.

Choosing Shakespeare

I'm teaching our Shakepeare survey this coming term, and I'm supposed to have selected texts already. That would be easy were I using a big old anthology, but I've switched over to individual editions a while back for a variety of reasons.

I'm pretty sure of two texts already: R&J (because the theater dept is putting it on) and All's Well (because I've never taught it before, and I have a goal to teach all of the plays before I retire).

So, which texts should I teach? (I sometimes teach a grouping of sonnets, and sometimes Lucrece, so don't limit yourselves to plays.)

I usually figure on about 8 texts over the term. I like to teach texts that have some crossover in terms of themes or issues. So, for example, I like to teach Othello and The Winter's Tale to speak to issues of marital jealousy and familial violence.

Go wild! Tell me your fantasy Shakespeare survey, and why!

*** Edited to Add ***

I usually try to balance two histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. Or I sub in Lucrece for a tragedy.

I really like the generational theme. I'm wondering if A&C would make a nice counter to R&J (grown up vs teen love/tragedy); I love to teach MfM, but would like to get in a nice, easy, and relaxing comedy, so I'm thinking AYLI. For histories, I typically pair 1H4 and H5, but with a generational theme, I think R2 and 1H4 would be a good pairing.

Here's the layout then, roughly (because R&J has to fit when it's playing on campus):

Some sonnets
AYLI
R&J
All's Well
R2
1H4
A&C
Cymbeline
WT

We have generational issues and "coming of age" themes through a number of the plays. We can look at AYLI, All's Well, R&J, 1H4, and WT in terms of finding oneself, identity, disguise, playing.

A&C, Cymbeline, and WT are linked through jealousies as well.

Cymbeline works as a nice way to rethink English history (it's lovely to pair with KJ, though).

Are there specific editions of any of these that stand out as superb and not too expensive? (I really like Orgel's WT, for example, but I haven't looked at the Arden 3s for most of these.)

I Need...

a friend called Bunbury.

Frazzled Friday

On Wednesday, I got a mass email from one of the support areas on campus advertising an opportunity, a sort of grant. The application is due on the 4th, one week from the advertisement date.

Okay, one might say that we worker-bees should always keep up and be aware of all the opportunities available across campus and the world; I'm sure if I'd gone looking for this a month ago, I would have found an application form. But I didn't know it existed a month ago.

However, this time, I had a heads up last week from a colleague who got the grant this year, suggesting that I look into it. So I'd been thinking a bit about it, but wasn't really aware of the due dates or what's required.

I spent much of yesterday working on writing an application letter and updating and cutting my CV down to two pages (without going to a microfont). I also need to get a support letter from the chair, dean, or provost. (I asked my chair on Wednesday, after I saw the mass email, and the chair was encouraging and supportive.)

A lot of opportunities around here hit fast in this sort of way; there are a couple of days notice, and that's it. There's a long history around here that the people who are being groomed for opportunities or whatever get a heads up ahead of time, telling them to get an app ready, and then somehow they get it. (It used to be that they'd just get the appointment, but things have opened up enough that we actually allow others to apply these days.) It's a huge advantage for anyone favored by the folks over in the administrative Fort, since they set the dates and make the choices.

I've detested the situation since I learned it existed, and yet here I am, trying to take advantage of it. I'm a little uncomfortable.

I'm also having trouble putting everything together. I have to make it sound as if I'm qualified for the grant (I think I am) but still really, really need the grant to do the work and can't possibly do it without the additional support.

I asked two colleagues to give me feedback on my letter yesterday, and I have significant work still to do. But I need to more or less get a finished draft today so I can give it to the chair to use in writing that letter.

Sometimes it seems that the people over in administration forget how busy and structured faculty lives are during the semester. A couple weeks ago, someone from the Fort put together a series of a couple programs on teaching through the flu (using electronic media, etc). The mass email was sent out encouraging all faculty folks to go two days before the first program; each of the programs was scheduled during the most class-intensive parts of the day (10-2 around here).

I'm guessing they complained about faculty not showing up.

It's like they have good ideas about programs that could help us, but then don't actually talk to any faculty folks about how to make things accessible to us. We can't change around our scheduled classes; we need serious lead time to rearrange standing committee and department meetings. The day to day work of teaching students and working with advisees goes on, and it's not very flexible for most of us.

They also tend to send us a faculty funding opportunities email once every week or two. Mine always inexplicably focus on NSF and NIH grants I should apply for. And you know, if I could link Shakespeare to a cure for cancer, I'd do it!

Back to working on my letter.

Quills!

Everyone needs to go see Quills' wonderful artwork!

Here!

Run over and watch the budding artist... err... bud! (She already uses color way more creatively than I ever have!)

It's a Mystery

Why do students think that adding three sentences to a D paper will turn it into an A paper?

I have my students highlight their revisions, so it's easy to actually visualize the additions they've made. (For big changes, they can just write at the top that they've changed everything. I have the graded draft to compare.)

Early Modern Madlibs

Bichos

In Spanish, at least where I served, gastro bugs or any bugs, germs, or parasites were called "bichos." I still use "bichos" as my generalized term for gastro-bugs and parasites. I called in sick today for the first time in a couple years. My gut hurts in that bichos kind of way; usually, thanks to the Peace Corps, I have a steel stomach, but apparently not today.

I got up, felt ucky, and went about getting ready for school. I made coffee, lunch, and wrapped up my breakfast to take to work (which I don't usually do, but I didn't feel like eating), and showered before deciding that I really didn't feel good.

And once I started thinking that, I wondered if I had a temperature, and almost convinced myself that I did. But I don't think I actually did.

(I don't have a people thermometer; obviously, that fact indicates that I'm lacking in the adult household department somehow. If I had a kid, I'd undoubtedly have a people thermometer. But I don't so I don't. I haven't needed one in years. I do have a meat thermometer, but that seems like a bad idea, one bound to make me feel worse than a mere fever even if I had a fever.)

I spent an hour or two emailing my classes, giving the students some tasks to work on for the next class. I hope most of them do the tasks, but I don't think I'll hold my breath. Still, if some do, the next classes will go a little more smoothly.

It made me think about on-line teaching and how difficult it might be to get students to do the necessary work and make connections. And again, it made me think about auto-didacts and how much work they have to do to really learn stuff. There's a big difference between really learning stuff and just listening to a lecture. And somewhere in between, most of our students learn what they learn.

The activity for today's writing class involved analyzing some film reviews to learn about genre conventions and figuring them out, and then to learn about film review conventions specifically. I have a pretty step by step method of analysis that students do starting in groups, with full class discussion between some of the steps.

I could tell students about genre conventions and how to figure them out, and some students would get it and be able to do it independently.

But actually practicing the process of analysis helps more students actually understand conventions and the process better (I hope).

But still, of course, whether students can do that analysis independently next semester is up for grabs. We all have good anecdotal evidence that what's learned in one semester isn't easily or well retained by most students.

To really get the skills well and fully, most students need some repetition. But how much repetition? And how much should things change between repetitions? (So, if you're writing an essay, you don't use the same essay prompt over and over during the semester.)

So that's what I've been thinking about between naps. Now I'm going to grade for a while, because I know I'll feel better if I get some grading done.

One Quarter of All Renaissance Drama in One Little Line Drawing, Accurately Represented in Full Detail

I love drama disguise conventions. It's so very silly, and yet because the audience has to recognize the disguised character and not confuse him/her with someone who's doubling a part, it has to be simple.

When I teach disguise convention, I very dramatically take my reading glasses from their usual class place on top of my head, put them on, and say, "no one will recognize me NOW!" It always gets a laugh, but it makes the point about how simple the disguise can be.

ps. I love early modern titles!

Dim Light

Not the best picture, and the light was going and the Downy Woodpecker wasn't thrilled when my flash went off, but I wanted to get a picture of the snow. The vine-looking thing he's (I'm guessing from the red on the back of the head) is actually a bent-over sunflower plant.

We've got some heavy, wet snow today. I pushed it around my driveway, and even though there wasn't much, it was a pain.

I'm so not ready for winter.

My classes are all doing the cough and hack thing that happens when the weather gets nasty and we all try to fight off little colds. Some of my students are emailing to say they think they have the flu; I'm inclined to believe them more than in most years (when a gastro bug gets called "flu").

I went to a local box store this week and got myself a seasonal flu shot. The local clinic usually does a flu vaccination thing in late October, but the website says it's indefinitely postponed for lack of vaccines. So, I paid my hard-earned cash rather than wait. It just seems that an extra couple of weeks could be really helpful, especially if we all get hit by the regular flu season after the H1N1 thing has gone through.

I think the swine flu shot's coming too little too late for me. I'm not in a priority group, and the swine flu seems to be pretty widespread in the state (according to the state health website tracker thingy). So by the time I could get that vaccine, I'll either have already caught that bug or not. Oh well.

Here's good news: the friendly pup from across the street is going to visit tomorrow night, so I'll get a whole load of puppy therapy and snow play!

Foxe Question

At some point, I was told or read that Foxe's Acts and Monuments (aka Book of Martyrs) was commonly taught as an early reading text and was widely available in churches as well.

I'm wondering, if that's so, was it widely used in the American colonies by early protestant settlers?

EEBO doesn't seem to show any texts printed in the colonies (but my search may have been off in spelling; it certainly wasn't exhaustive).

Any thoughts?

(We're doing Latimer and Ridley today. Should be interesting.)

Waste

I had a visitor from one of our student service areas in my first year class today. The idea is that the visitor, a student who's had some experience with the student service office, does a short presentation about the services offered by the office so that first year students learn about the services and (maybe) go take advantage of them.

All good. The student who came did a good job with the presentation. But then the student handed out little toys, sort of like little stress balls, but not. And a couple t-shirts. Okay, at least t-shirts might keep people warm and get worn, but little toys?

Let's imagine they each cost a couple bucks, and the service area buys say, 2000. That ends up being a fair bit of money off the top. We're doing budget cuts and the service area buys toys? We're adding extra students to most sections, and the service area buys toys? I know the money's not equal, but surely there's a better way to spend it?

And the toys. I imagine there are going to end up in the garbage pretty fast, filling the landfill. And that's if we're lucky. If we're not lucky, they'll end up in the gutter, or dropped on some floor, and someone will have to pick them up, clean up the floor, clear the mess. So not only have we wasted money on the toys, but we've wasted all the resources and poured an extra bit of plastic/foam stuff into the environment so that in 200 years, someone will be digging through a landfill and pick up the toy and wonder what sort of idiot paid good money for it.

A Special Place

The Anglican Communion, the overall name for the whole organization that includes the Episcopal church in the US, is in the throes of yet another schism-type thing. The majority, I gather, wants to allow the ordination of gay and lesbian priests, wants to bless same-sex unions, and wants to sanctify (is that the term?) gay and lesbian bishops. A minority thinks these things are an abomination.

In the 80s, as I recall, the argument was about ordaining women, and some folks thought that was an abomination.

Before that, in the 70s, the Episcopal church in the US wanted to change the prayer book so that some services used language that wasn't archaic (that's what I remember from being a kid then, anyway). And some folks thought that was an abomination.

In each case, most people stayed with their parish, but folks who didn't like what was happening left. They didn't tend to leave for Unitarian congregations; because they were unhappy with the progressive movement of the Episcopal (or Anglican) communion, they looked for more conservative affiliations or made their own parishes.

And now the Catholic church is reaching out; it's like the Vatican is shouting, "If you hate gays, lesbians and women, come join the Catholic church! We've got a special deal for you!"

What a special deal. If you hate gays, lesbians and women, the Catholic church is the place for you. Really. If you think women aren't equal in your God's eyes, then join the Catholic church. If you think God hates the gay and lesbian people you think he created, join the Catholic church.

(The special deal part has to do with dogma and specific practices, I gather; but I'm guessing most Episcopals really don't care or know much about the dogma. It's not exactly the most strenuous in it's religious education, so far as I remember. And I'm guessing the folks looking seriously at the Catholic church aren't fretting lots over consubstantiation vs transubstantiation.)

***

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, in an Episcopal, church-going family, but by the time I hit college, I'd had my crisis of faith and decided that, comforting as all the pretty hymns and such might be, I really didn't see any evidence that what I'd been taught as a Christian had any basis in reality. And I saw a good deal of evidence that what I'd been taught made no logical sense at all.

I also wasn't really interested in worshipping a God that thought women were crap. My service in the parish was basically doing dishes. Yeah, it wasn't called that, it was called polishing brass, but it was basically doing dishes, and it was behind the scenes and respected about as much as all women's work. Only boys and men could be seen having meaningful roles in actual services. That didn't help my little crisis of faith. (If I'd been a few years younger, the female ordination thing would have played out and I wouldn't have been turned off by this particular aspect of Episcopal practice.)

And so, I had a couple big arguments with my Mom about whether I had to attend church, and at some point, I was an adult and that was that.

Retrospectively, as I became more aware of the Civil Rights movements that had been happening while I was growing up, and especially as I became aware that the Civil Rights movements had been led by Christians, often, and centered through Christian parishes, I began to wonder why none of the sermons in our church talked about Civil Rights or race or justice. The parish I'd grown up in had mostly middle class white folks (mostly), with a fair scattering of community leaders--bankers, realtors, lawyers. And I wondered what would have happened if the sermons had pushed the bankers and realtors to fairer, more just lending and realty practices.

As an adult, I know full well that most of the bankers and realtors would have pushed back, either threatening to leave and take their supportive tithes with them or threatening to get the rector fired. Either way, it would have taken a very strong rector with strong beliefs to take up that challenge.

I have no idea what the rector of the church where I grew up felt about Civil Rights. I don't remember him ever saying. (I do remember numerous sermons about the beauty of fall leaves and how we should all be grateful.) But by the time I was a young adult, I was disappointed that I hadn't been taught about justice and Civil Rights through my supposed Christian education, because it was the most important movement happening through my youth, and we should have been led to think about it early on. It would have been, as they say, the Christian thing to do.

The rector of the church, Father Last Name, shared a house with the deacon, Father First Name. Father First Name was my favorite, probably most peoples' favorite, because he was kind and caring, taught our confirmation classes, hugged us when we skinned a knee playing, and made us feel that there really was love in the world. When he greeted me on Easter after the service with the traditional "The Lord is risen; the Lord is risen indeed, hallelujah," his joy and love shone through. Father Last Name was more distant, forbidding, almost scary. He didn't seem joyful at all, but sort of a sour, dour man.

As I said, they shared a house. Neither was married.

In the 70s, a new assistant was hired, a young, married priest.

And then the first schism I talked about hit, and suddenly Father Last Name and Father First Name retired, and the young assistant I guess tried to take over, but ended up leaving the Episcopal church to start his own parish of folks who didn't like the new changes.

As an adult, I've talked to some people who were adults parish-members then, and the vague consensus is that Father First Name and Father Last Name were gay, closeted and very careful, lovers. Maybe people in the parish guessed it, if they cared, but since the two were closeted and very careful, and maybe since Father First Name was beloved by all, it just wasn't that big a deal. But the folks I know seem to think that Father New Assistant tried to use it against them, and forced them to retire thinking he'd be able to take over, but that he didn't fully succeed in that last part.

So I wonder whether Father Last Name could have preached about Civil Rights? Maybe as a privileged white man, he didn't care. But I wonder, when Stonewall happened in 1969, did he want to preach about it to his parish?

Of course, I'll never know. For all I know, they weren't gay. Or they had sex together but didn't identify as gay. Or whatever.

But I wish Father Last Name had preached about Civil Rights and Stonewall.

The very things that would attract me to the Episcopal church now (except for the whole God part) are the things that some people hate so much that they'll leave. It's not the logic that takes them away, as it is for me, it's that the church is too darned progressive. It's that they want a place where they can hate women, gays and lesbians. And the Catholic church welcomes their hatred.

Were I a believer in such things, I might conceive a special place reserved for people who hate so much.

The Joy of Grading

I just graded a brilliantly insightful Crux Buster (the assignment shared with me by Dr. Virago, thanks, Dr. V!).

I feel like dancing in the hallways. It's this short, tight piece, but totally brilliant and with all the potential in the world for the student to develop and do some research to make it into a conference paper.

Pop; or, Thoughts on Expertise

I had a flat today. I was out riding with a friend, on a road she'd heard was great riding (and it was). We were going down a sort of steep (but short) hill, with a sign warning that there's a hidden intersection, so I was riding my brakes, going slow. This is the Buster Keaton moment (you know how he could be walking in his films and a house would fall around him without actually touching him? Like that), because usually I ride with the abandon of a 12-year old down hills, but not this time, not this once. Then I heard this loud POP right under me. I said, "that can't be good," and wondered why I wasn't head over heels on the ground. I braked harder, realized my front tire was flat, and stopped safely.

My friend and I changed out the inner tube, and filled it with air. And then my friend noticed that there was a bulge of tube out the side of the tire. So we let out a little air, and I noticed that in the filling process I'd managed to break off part of the presta valve inner stem thing.

So we called a friend, and she and her partner generously came to pick us up. (We were about five miles out of town; yes, we could have walked.) (If I'd thought of it before I broke the presta valve thing, I could have done the fold up a dollar bill and use it to support the inner tube in the area of the split thing, but I didn't think of it in time.)

I have to say, if I'm going to have a flat, it's great to have a good friend there, someone who doesn't seem to get impatient or cranky, who laughs with me at broken Presta valves, and who's likely to be calm and competent in an emergency. And I'm also incredibly grateful to have friends who will come pick me up when I have a problem. I've never had to call before, but I'm so glad for my friends!

What does this have to do with expertise?

On my last post, a couple folks took issue with my calling myself a bike noobie or not a real biker. And I've been thinking about that. Maybe instead of "noob," I should think of myself more as a casual biker? Maybe "noob" and "noobie" have darker connotations for others than for me? But, to me, a real biker is an expert, and I'm not an expert biker.

I know what I feel like as an expert. I'm pretty much a Shakespeare/early modern lit expert. I'm probably one of the top 2500 people in the US at teaching college level Shakespeare/early modern lit. I'm sure there are people who do it lots better than I do, who know more than I ever will, who think more creatively about the questions and issues in the field, but I'm going to claim expertise. I studied hard to gain expertise in earning my phud, but I've also learned tons since then. I've sought out opportunities to learn about staging by doing dramaturgy, for example. I've tried different assignments, class activities, syllabus arrangements, and so forth, trying to figure out what works for what sorts of situations to help students do different kinds of learning.

The flip side to feeling like an expert in one thing is that I recognize when I'm not an expert and realize just how expansive people's knowledge goes into things I may be somewhat conversant about. I'm somewhat conversant about biking, and, yet this was the first flat I've ever had. And now I know what it feels like to have a flat, and how scary it is and isn't, and how the bike feels a little different. If I had been going fast, I probably would have fallen, and then I'd have gained a bit of knowledge about cleaning up road rash, probably. But I didn't. (It's good to be lucky!)

An expert biker has probably flatted a score of times in different situations, and would maybe be able to handle the bike better, to change the tire more efficiently (without breaking the valve and possibly figuring out about the slit so that s/he could put a folded up dollar in before adding all the air to the inner tube).

Here's another example: I've read an article doubting that using pedal cleats really helps bikers (though I'm not sure it's the one Brian kindly suggested). I'm not sure my cleats actually help me pedal better. I know sometimes I can consciously pull up, but I don't most of the time. I do like that my feet don't slip, which they did a couple times while I was a kid.

However, I'm willing to bet that if you went to where the top bikers do their bike testing and training, someone has measured the wattage output with and without cleats, and could tell you the difference in a given biker's output with a fair bit of precision in a variety of wind tunnel conditions. That person is an expert. Me, I'm not. (And those people seem to think that clicking in has a positive effect or they wouldn't do it.)

There's a book I've heard of by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers, where he argues that it takes some ten thousand hours of doing something to become an expert at it. I'm not sure that's so, nor that just doing something for hours is enough to become an expert. I'm guessing you'd have to focus as you were doing the activity.

Still, ten thousand hours is more than a year (8760, if you don't sleep), and I sure as heck don't put in that sort of time on my bike (about 150 hours this year so far); moreover, most of the hours I put in on my bike aren't increasing my expertise greatly because I'm not working at pedaling better or faster, or focusing on handling skills; I'm just getting some sunshine and exercise.

And despite my flat today, I'm ever so happy that I could get out for a ride, along a beautiful road, with a good friend, in the sunshine. So even though I don't think of myself as an expert, I still love playing bikes.

Shake Your Bootie(s)

Biking shoes, at least mine, are basically mesh on the topside. That's great in summer because the air flowing by and through the mesh helps cool things down.

When it's cold out, though, it's not so great.

One solution is to get little toe covers, and pretend that they'll keep your feet warm and dry. They really don't do much, at least not that I ever noticed. (You might be noticing here that I have amateur hour biking shoes. I think they're more mountain biking than road biking? At any rate, I'm a biking noob and it shows in oh so many ways.)

I finally gave up on that and got myself biking booties. One thing about bikers: we try to pretend that we actually know what we're doing and look the part at the same time. It's not easy. For example, these booties, which bootie goes with which shoe? Do they go like this?

I asked Terry at the bike shop (who counts as a real biker, I gather) and he pondered for a few moments before deciding that we were probably supposed to put the light reflective label on the outside, so I can advertise and be visible to cars in a single pedal stroke.

Good to know, since I wouldn't want my noobness to be any more obvious at first glance than it has to be (though riding an aluminum rather than a carbon, ti, or ancient steel bike is a fair giveaway).

Notice that I gained about 20% sleekitude in my lower legs through this, and since your lower leg rotates (though not as fast as a tire), sleekness counts extra. I probably gained point oh something of a hundreth of a percent speed!

If I really wanted to look like a pro, though, I'd need a bright orange or pink or lime green or something bootie. In what other sport do pro male athletes where pink and orange or lime green?

Of course, what you can't easily see about the booties is super important, the cut out so my cleats will still work. (Yes, my cleats are another noob clue.)

In what other sport do you pay a lot of money for a shoe thing that doesn't even cover the whole shoe?

The ride was worth it, though. The leaves feel late changing, but maybe it's just the cold weather and snow we've already had throwing me off?

And my feet were pretty much toasty warm for the whole hour. My knees, though... I may need knee warmers next.

Tuckered Out

I lost it in class today. I'd asked them to pay attention, waited while they chattered. The background chattering continued, again and again. And finally, I turned around and slumped dramatically against the table. Even more dramatically than I intended, my reading glasses fell off the usual perch on my head. And then they (the students, not the glasses) actually stopped chattering.

I didn't yell, but I did ask them to focus and not chatter to each other on the side.

And some of the students, the ones who aren't chattering, smiled. One of the chatterers apologized after class.

It's a good class, mostly, but hard to keep them focused on the text and discussion.

Then there were meetings, and they were pretty good.

And then I went out and bought some bulbs to put in. I got 45 grape hyacinth, 25 crocus, and 30 mixed deer resistant (daffodils and something else that I don't quite remember right now). I put in a bunch in the front yard, in two areas. But the front yard is a pain because it's got small river stone "mulch" over weed resistant wrap. Except the wrap is good against weeds for only a year or two, after which there's enough eroded dirt in the layer of "mulch" supports weeds quite easily. And then the weeds are all twisted in and around the rocks, and so an extra pain in the rear to weed.

Meanwhile, planting is a pain. My soil is mostly little tight packed rocky stuff, sort of sandstone that's breaking down a bit, so to really plant I have to amend with organic material and (for bulbs) bone meal. All that means I pull off the river rock in the small area, dig in the organic material and bone meal, stick in the bulbs, and then spread just enough rocks back to not look TOO different. Then I dump the rest of the rocks where they're less of a pain (in the back, holding the gutter extenders more or less in place). I planted more than half the bulbs in three areas so far. I'll hold a couple back to force, I think, and put in the rest tomorrow in another area.

I'm tired, but if I get some grading or reading done, the rest of the weekend will be a lot easier.

D'you Want Fries with That?

I was in a meeting earlier this week during which a colleague talked a little about the difficulties our students have conceptualizing themselves as potential employees. They learn all these important and useful skills, but they don't quite know how to put those into context for an employer.

They also hear again and again that English majors have no job prospects, and that they should really study business in order to get a job.

I know getting a job isn't the only point of a liberal arts education, but for our students it's a major concern (with good reason). It's especially big for our first generation students, since they don't have lots of models available of people they know who have college educations and have moved from getting a degree in English or whatever and getting a job in real estate or management or something else.

I think back to my own models, and my own anxieties when I was an undergraduate student. I had my Dad as a model of someone with a college degree; but he worked for the family business (engineering/light manufacturing) and it was made very clear by my grandfather and father that sons and grandsons were welcome, but daughters and granddaughters weren't part of the plan. So my Dad was an obvious model for my brother (one he followed through undergrad) but not for me.

Other than that, I knew that one of my aunts was a nurse. Then there were school teachers I knew from primary and high school. One neighbor was a physical therapist. And that was pretty much it so far as I knew (I had minimal knowledge of women who had college degrees). But I knew I wasn't interested in nursing or high school teaching. So I felt pretty lost. And my family wasn't much more confident; I remember my Mom telling me that it didn't matter what I majored in because I could always work as a secretary until I got married. (Can I just say how glad I am that the world has changed so much since then, and how grateful I am that I had the opportunities I did?)

So today in my senior seminar, we talked about what they'd learned in college, focusing on skills and how they knew they'd "gotten" something in a real way. I didn't make the connection to work overly explicit, and that may not be good enough, but I tried to get students to practice a bit talking about their skills and why they're valuable in the world.

It's odd, because I talk to my first year writing students quite a bit about liberal arts and skills and such, but bringing that into a course in early modern lit isn't as obvious or easy for me.

Was our discussion useful for my students?

I think maybe it was because one of the students came to talk to me about job and career decisions later and said she'd thought about some things anew.

The questions of the day for you folks are how do you talk to your more advanced students about their preparation for future careers? How do you help them prepare for applications, interviews, and so forth? And finally, how do you talk realistically to them about the costs of graduate school when that sometimes seems like the only alternative (because we faculty are ready role models).

Just Sad

One of my students was absent for a couple days, and then came back. And suddenly I realized how much I'd enjoyed the class discussion in his/her absence.

I would give a lot if in one of my lower level classes, one student would actually raise his/her hand and respond to what was said before by another student. Sometimes there's a relationship between what the second student says and what was said, but the second student almost never seems to recognize that.

(Okay, once in a while, but not nearly as often as I'd like.)

One can say the same thing for some department meeting discussions, alas.

Procrastination is Bad

You'd think that after nearly 20 years of teaching (with a couple years off for various fellowships and such), that I'd have learned that procrastinating about grading is a bad idea and a worse practice. And yet, I procrastinated much of the weekend.

Besides the slowness getting back papers and all that means, procrastination basically means I do almost nothing else meaningful because I tell myself that I'll grade in just a moment, and I really need to grade, and I don't have time to put bulbs in or whatever. And then I don't.

I woke up at 4 this morning after a nearly sleepless night because I was so tense about my grading, and I finished the stack. So, for now, I am ALMOST caught up on grading. ALMOST. (I have two papers to grade, and maybe can do them by this afternoon if I finish some other stuff.)

And then I get a stack this afternoon, too. But that will be a pretty good stack, I think. I hope.

I did do something at least mildly cool this weekend, other than procrastinating. I started watching a friend's DVDs of Breaking Bad. The basic concept of the show is that a high school chem teacher finds out he has lung cancer, and knowing that his wife is pregnant and he's got a son with a disability, he's desperate for money. So he turns to a previous student and begins making meth with him.

It's a weird premise, but the show is really good in an absurdist way. And there's something to be said for a show that shows that high school chem teachers have highly valuable skills.

I've only watched the first several episodes of the first season so far, but there are a couple of highlight moments. First, I laughed when the bathtub collapsed. (I think it's the part of me that delights in teaching Titus.) And I loved when the meth partner kid gets all involved in making a really great product for his customers and throws out three batches that he thinks are inferior (though the other cooker he's working with thinks they look great). It just cracks me up somehow to think of meth dealers being really concerned with having a high quality product. (But then, I know nothing about meth, so maybe it's a big deal?)

I also loved the DEA agent brother-in-law.

In conclusion, then, if you want to procrastinate, you should do it with a good show on the computer (or dvd if you have one of those).

Cold

It got above 30 this morning, so I wrapped up and went for a short ride. I rode reasonably well (for me) and was warm enough. When I finished, I put on a jacket, turned on the heat in the car, came home and jumped in a hot shower. Then I put on long johns, a shirt, another shirt, and sweat pants. I ate a hot lunch.

And when I sat down to grade in the heated house in front of my little space heater, within about ten minutes, I was shivering. Blah. It's hard to focus on grading when you're shivering.

I don't know why I'm so cold. I don't think I'm getting sick (I biked and felt good and rode reasonably well for me and I don't think I would have felt good and ridden that well if I were sick). And I don't feel sick.

I don't know how to face being cold for the next six months.

Grading Avoidance

There was snow on the ground this morning. My papers are not closer to being graded than they were yesterday, and I'm in avoidance mode. Or was. I'm going to start grading now.

But, since you may be in avoidance mode, here's another piece of lit ruined by stick figures.

Oxymoronic Grading

I just read a quite poorly written paper about the importance of communication.

When I was taught to respond to student writing, I was taught that I'm supposed to say something positive and then point out how to make the writing stronger.

All too often, it's tempting to make the positive statement something along the lines of "you've got a good idea, BUT blah blah." The "but blah blah" is painful, and makes the positive bit feel so minimal.

However, it's really hard to come up with positive things to write sometimes. This paper is a good example, because what I want to write is that yes, communication is important, and yours would sure be a lot better if you could write decently to communicate your point.

My upcoming committee meeting is looking quite appealing compared to this stack.

Three Good Things

Our admin assistant today looked at me when I walked in, and said, "You remind me of chocolate." I took that as about the highest compliment one could hope for, even though she was realizing when she saw me that the little bowl of candies she keeps on her desk (and which I enjoy getting a treat from and contributing to with bags for her drawer) was empty, and she thought I'd want some.

Still, since pretty much everyone smiles when they're eating chocolate, I'd be happy if to remind people of chocolate. That has to be a good thing, right?

One of my colleagues stopped me in the hall to say that some committee work I'd been in charge of had been done well and she really appreciated it. That sort of made my day. Funny how something like that can give me the warm and fuzzies.

And now I'm going out to dinner with some friends.

I could add, I had a really nice bike ride today, and taught three classes, each of which went quite well, with good, solid discussions and participation from students.

I could also add that I turned back a set of short papers to one class today, and have only one more set hanging over my head to grade and turn back for Friday.

I guess that's more like eight good things. Good thing I'm not in the math department.

A Different Sort of Meeting

I went to a meeting today about teaching abroad. I'm excited, but not particularly hopeful because budget cuts have hit teaching abroad here at NWU hard.

But still, it's a cool program, and would be a new place for me. (Though part of me would love to go back to Japan. At least I know the alphabet in the new country!)

Fingers crossed, please.

Hours Eaten Up

I got in this morning at 7:45, a bit later than usual. And then I tried to handle a committee task I needed to handle, and before I knew it, it was 8:30, and I hadn't done the last minute centering and such that I usually do, or graded the last couple of papers in my pile.

When I finished class (where I was less than inspiring, alas), I graded the pile, responded to an issue about the committee task, ate a quick lunch, and then went off to my other classes. And then I spent some time talking to a student about class stuff, responding to some student email questions, and finishing some prep stuff for a class. My email got overloaded again, so I cleaned out a couple big pdf files.

I went to try to ask the admin assistant something a couple minutes ago, but she's long gone for the day because it's after 5pm.

It's like, there's time, but not. And now I'm going to go home and grade some more.

I'd like to think I accomplished something today, but it feels sort of like nothing I did really mattered (except the teaching, some of which was good).

Cramped

Going from teaching a great Shakespearean play (though one with a only modest body count) to a modern play is, well, cramping. The scene stays the same, rather than roaming with world; the emotional level feels, well, despairing, without doing anything about it. There are no highs, no real anguish, just whiney angst, no sense of a character realizing s/he's made a big mistake--and that's just in the comedies--or is caught up in history, no playful metadrama, just overdrawn stage directions and endless blather.

And most of all, there's not a single moment of soaring verse, no ceremony, no Aleppo, no Edenic isle, no what's Hecuba to him, nada.

And the mother? She's clearly supposed to be a nightmare, but compared to Volumnia, she just doesn't impress.

Clearly, I'm not a realist, am I?

I really don't get why anyone would stage this one when they have a world of great plays to choose from. (I'm teaching it because it's going to be played locally and my students could go see it. And yes, it's an important play, and good for what it is.)

Harder than You Might Think

I went for a ride today between the rain (mostly, I got caught a little). Just before I got to my turn around point, I saw these two, and they saw me. Sometimes, deer just look at me as I'm biking along with this "what the hell kind of idiot contraption has that human come up with now?" look. These deer had that look, and then they took off.

Meanwhile, I had stuck my little camera in my jersey, and quickly pulled it out and turned it on, which isn't all that easy with long-fingered riding gloves and pedaling and all. So I didn't get a great picture.

And that's the metaphor of the week: it wasn't all that easy what with my hands busy and pedaling and all.

Speaking of metaphors, do you ever get the feeling that whoever first used the "capstone" metaphor for a college "finishing" type experience really didn't know what a capstone is, and maybe meant to use "keystone" but got it wrong and now we're all stuck with it? Because it's a piss-poor metaphor that doesn't work when you think it through.

I really needed that ride today, though, rain or no.

I woke up really early this morning, and sort of sat up and realized that people in my department are (overall) really demoralized, tired, and on edge. I think getting our first cut paycheck hit home, and we're getting to the grading point where we feel the extra students loaded into classes more, and the administrative demands (more assessment!) feel piled on. If we were a person, we'd be on blood-pressure stuff for sure.

I'd like one of my colleagues to quit complaining about something s/he didn't have the fortitude to object to when s/he was in a position to make a difference. I'd like another colleague to quit complaining about exactly the same thing. The thing is, both people were working on the same task, and neither had the fortitude to try to change what was heppening, and neither apparently realized that the other would have agreed.

I'd like another colleague to not be so difficult about meeting times. I don't know if this person actually cannot meet at X time, or if it would just be inconvenient.

And finally, I'd like yet another colleague to actually do the committee work s/he agreed to do.

On the other hand, I had a really fruitful talk with a student this week; the student asked for help with something, and I think I was able to help him/her, and then we found something extra cool, but only because we were looking. I think the student might follow up on the coolness, which could make for a fascinating project.

I'm so far behind in grading I want to hide, but now I have to get to it.

Lacking Imagination

We're working on a new way of doing general education here in the Northwoods. And on one level, the plan sounds really interesting. And I don't want to turn into a curmudgeon before I'm 50 (coming close, though).

But I'm having a hard time imagining how anything I teach will fit into this form of general education.

It's the same issue I tend to have when we talk about interdisciplinary teaching.

When I look in other areas of NWU, areas outside my department, I don't see much being taught that relates to what I teach and I'm having difficulty imagining how I fit. We don't have a British history person, much less an early modern European historian, or a medieval European historian. We don't have theater people who really like early modern theater. Our women's studies folks begin in the 19th century.

So when we talk about these general education and interdisciplinary teaching, and I mention my concerns, I'm told, "we have to be student centered about our teaching; you need to stretch."

Right now, I'm stretched in one class from classical Greece to the 20th century. I'm stretched in that class between two continents. In another class, I'm stretched into teaching about a local immigrant group because that's the text the department chose. It's not that any of these things are bad, but I'm pretty much stretched as far as I can be in my classes. In only one class am I teaching to my strengths.

The thing about stretching, is that I studied early modern drama because it's fascinating to me in ways that the 20th century just wasn't and isn't. Nor do I find the Romantics that fascinating, or graphic novels, or television. Those fields are plenty fascinating for people who are fascinated by them, but I'm not. I just lack the imagination to want to teach those areas.

I suppose I could take comfort in thinking that it will all work out in the years it will take to change the curriculum, and that I've got tenure and they're not going to fire me because I can't stretch so far. But mostly I'm upset because realizing how much I lack imagination makes me aware again of how limited my intellect is. And I'm tired.

(And I taught some Milton yesterday, so I was reminded of that pretty strongly then, too.)

(I wish the next person who tells me I should stretch got told s/he has to teach Milton next semester, because really, all s/he has to do is stretch a little, right?)