Twins!

Okay, I know they're not really twins, because they're the seeding bodies, and not the seeds or plants from the seeds, but seriously, aren't these cute?

Previously, I've had three (I think) cones from my other young pine tree, but these look like the first for this tree! (I have two other, quite small pines, too, but they're still not mature enough to make cones.) These are in a good spot to see from my deck, so I'm eager to watch them grow!

I have a top super secret special thing that I call the "Pinecone Project." It's sort of embarrassing, or at least has the potential to be. When the cones from the other tree dropped, I opened them up the rest of the way and got out some seeds, and then read up a bit on the internet about pine seed germination and learned about cold stratification. The basic idea of cold stratification is that you put the seed in a cold, wet area (wet cloth in the refrigerator, for example) and fool it into thinking that it's been the spring thaw, so that it gets ready to germinate. So I did that, and had, for a while, a container with seeds in my fridge.

That got me thinking that I should gather some other seeds (since there were so few left in the cones by the time they dropped), and do the same, so I went to a local parkish area (there's a pool area, golf course, walking area, and parking lot all together) and collected some pine cones. Because the cones are differently shaped, I was able to collect both white and red pine seeds, and did. (The nurseries here tend to only carry white pine plants, though I'm not sure why, but I'd like some diversity in my pines.)

I did the cold stratification thing to those seeds, too, and then planted them, and here's the result. I'm pretty sure the one seedling is just a random seedling from weeds or whatever, but the others? They look alike, but they don't look anything like pines, do they? Of course, that makes sense, since pine needles grow out of a fascicle, and it would make sense that a tiny seedling wouldn't just produce miniature fascicles and pine needles. But I'm eagerly waiting to see if these actually ARE my pines or not.

Why the project? There's this lovely green space between my house and the ones on the far side of the little valley thing, and supposedly, that's too steep to be developed with other houses. (Yes, I'm pretty sure that will eventually be changed and they'll decide it's not too steep, but I'm guessing it will be too steep for a while yet.) And if somehow, some tiny pine trees started growing in that area, then in 50 years, there would be a bit more privacy, right?

That and doing it is fun, too.

There's also this. We get a fair bit of road noise, and more trees (in my fantasy world) helps absorb and diffuse that. (Though in 50 years, I have a feeling we'll have less road noise because fewer gas cars and quieter, more aerodynamic cars. And somehow quieter tires? I don't plan to be around in this house, but maybe someone will!)

My plan, if things work, is to put these seedlings in a cage near the house for a couple of years (the rabbits eat anything not caged, if it tastes good), and then in a few years, move the seedlings out to near the sumac plants you see in the one picture.

In other news: The lone surviving Tamarack has greened up already, and the daffodils have bloomed beautifully. There are also the little blue Glory of the Snow flowers, blooming with delicate loveliness! And the grape hyacinths are showing, looking like little, tiny grape clusters. (I should take some more pictures this morning!)

This past week, spring has come in quite dramatically, and it's so wonderful. (But also scary, because we didn't get much snow this winter, and our farmers need plenty of water for crops and such.)

How's That Working Out for You?

You know when someone says s/he does X, and another person thinks that the results of X have been bad, and they ask how it's working out as a way to try to get the first person to re-evaluate doing X? Yes? This post is like that. I need to re-evaluate my grading for the break.

Here's what I listed on my to do list at th ebeginning of break:

Stack of Shakespeare papers
Stack of Writing papers
Stack of Writing peer editing
Stack of Shakespeare journals
Stack of Marlowe stuffs
SAA Response (today!)
Read other SAA papers
Draft a paper for something else
Clean up the house a bit
Plant marigolds (inside little pots)
Reread H5
Reread Marlowe play (how bad is it that I can't remember which one?)


And here's how it's working out so far:

Stack of Shakespeare papers - 9 left to do (33 total)
Stack of Writing papers - 8 left to do (24 total)
Stack of Writing peer editing - about half done
Stack of Shakespeare journals - done, grades recorded
Stack of Marlowe stuffs
SAA Response (today!) - done!
Read other SAA papers - not even started :(
Draft a paper for something else
Clean up the house a bit - done
Plant marigolds (inside little pots) - not even started (which is probably actually smart, given how early it still is in the spring season and how cold it can still get
Reread H5 - I found my text again
Reread Marlowe play (how bad is it that I can't remember which one?) - I figured out the text (and don't have to re-read until Wednesday)

And: I've gone birding to a marsh a ways away with a friend, ridden close to 100 miles, cared for some friends' pets, had a couple meals out with friends, made a verbal agreement for the roof work (they're sending out the contract), read a really good book (The Rider by Tim Krabbe), watched a couple of movies on dvd (A Single Man and Synechdoche, New York), put a book on cd into my itunes so I can listen at night.

And the day is still youngish (before noon)! So IF I can finish one of the stacks of papers today, and start in on H5, I'll call it very good!

But the stacks still look big :(

That Princeton Survey Thing

I just filled out the survey; I'd done the original pass way back when.

They really set it up so that it's focused on folks at R1s, and need to rething the "how many courses" you teach question to also ask about credit hours or student contact hours.

It's hard to be cheerful about professional prospects in this state. I need to not think about that or I'll start getting really upset and will want to go home and make oatmeal cookies so that I can eat the dough.

But, I'm over halfway done with one big grading stack, so at least there's that.

The Thing About Grading

You start, and grade for a good while, and then you look, and somehow your stack feels just as large, and maybe larger, than it did.

If you've got classes in the high 20s and 30s, you can't (or maybe I should say "I can't"?) just power through and finish, as I can with a few papers or small journal type assignments.

The other thing: there's really nothing on TV that works for grading. At least for me. (I need something fairly familiar, not too interesting, just to make some background noise.)

More grading must happen today.

Stress Break?

Today is the first official day of spring break here at NWU. Last night I had a dream, not quite a nightmare, that it was the first day back and I hadn't graded any of the papers I need to grade. Bleargh!

So here's the work rundown for the week:

Stack of Shakespeare papers
Stack of Writing papers
Stack of Writing peer editing
Stack of Shakespeare journals
Stack of Marlowe stuffs
SAA Response (today!)
Read other SAA papers
Draft a paper for something else
Clean up the house a bit
Plant marigolds (inside little pots)
Reread H5
Reread Marlowe play (how bad is it that I can't remember which one?)


It sounds like a lot, and feels like a lot, but it's easier to focus when you don't have classes to prep and teach throughout the day and week, right?

Yesterday, a friend and I went to a big marsh several hours away, but we didn't see nearly as many birds as I would have hoped. The company was wonderful and we had a really good time (at least I did), so it was a great trip.

Crocus Report

My crocuses came up and bloomed midweek, but I didn't have time to get out there in good light with a camera. But here they are.

One of the things I really enjoy about the blog is that I can look back and see what's what with things. For example, I did a search for "crocus" on the blog and was surprised to see that while we're all talking about what an amazingly early spring we're having, I had posted pictures of my crocuses at about this time several years. So it feels early, but the crocuses aren't saying it's that much earlier, maybe a few days, maybe not. I suppose that's why we write things down?

Since I wasn't here in fall to put new bulbs in, or to redig older plantings, I'm happy to see that lots are coming up anyway! And thinking about where to put in some new plantings.

Spring break officially began for me yesterday afternoon! Let the relaxing begin! (And the grading, and reading!)

My Students!

I had 20+ students come to class, and they were great.

I got all teary-eyed reading Hal's farewell to Hotspur. But I noticed one of my students wiping her eye, too :)

***

As for what I do with a class of 30+ for Shakespeare?

This is a sophomore level class, though my junior level classes also cap at 35.

Mostly discussion: break out groups look at passages, then come back for full class discussion. Mini-lecture moments, but mostly looking at the text and pulling from there to talk about themes and issues. Sometimes we draw stuff, enact moments, read aloud, etc.

For grading:
10 short journals (on a specific passage in a text)
4 Research Question assignments (prep for later assignment)
Explication Paper
Research paper based on question (find a published essay that responds to the research question, write a summary of it and how it answers your question, basically)
Midterm
Final Exam

I'd guess I get about 15 full pages of prose from the average student, with some doing up to 30, and some a bit less (not counting the midterm and final). They have some choice on journals (they have to turn in 10 of about 15 possible journals), and on research questions.

At this point in the semester, I've graded 7 of the short journals, and 4 out of the 5 research question assignment possibilities. They've done the explication, and taken the midterm. So the next big thing is the research assigment, and then the final.

Our students tend to be willing to work hard if you ask them to, and are very capable readers and thinkers. They're good people to work with.

Taking Bets

How many of the 33 students currently enrolled in my Shakespeare class will be in class this afternoon?

more than 20
between 10 and 20
fewer than 10

All the students who signed up for conferences with me this morning (five) came, so that's hopeful (but that wasn't for the Shakespeare class).

I haven't been off the floor (where my department lives) and into the teaching wing yet today, but I heard from a colleague that a lot of classes are dark. And presumably they're not dark because they're playing a movie.

Today's the day we talk about Falstaff, honor, death, and then we kill Hotspur. It's a good day! And then break, and that, too, should be good!


*edited to change the greater than and less than signs, which html things mean something different, and thus didn't display as I wanted.

And yes, I said "fewer." Anyone else have that pet peeve about count nouns?

Another Reason to be Glad I Teach English

I read a research protocol today that involved counting and measuring mouse feces.

I've never had to do that as a lit prof. What's more, I've never had to write up a protocol asking permission to do that.

Life's looking pretty good right now!

Three More Days

There's nothing quite like getting to work early in the morning and entering a long column of midterm exam grades in the gradebook. For just that moment you can look and see that yes, you did a good deal of work to get those graded.

But then there are all the blank columns still waiting. And the stacks of papers in my bag and on the desk, all waiting.

I have one big stack to grade still (I'm aiming for Friday, but not really hopeful). Then there's a small stack for one class, a small stack for another class, and a small stack for another class. (The small stacks tend to be journals, so they aren't too onerous, but they still take some time.)

And then, and then, there's spring break!

I have a foot appointment (which I may cancel) and a roofing estimate appointment, but other than that, my time looks flexible. I'm also okay to give blood again in there, but I think I'll put it off for a week so that I can ride my bike and feel good every day. (Giving blood makes me feel less than lively if I ride the next day. I don't feel less lively if I do normal stuff, but riding or other sporty stuff, I do.)

My foot: Last time, the physical therapist suggested trying some support shoes (structured, or something), so I got a pair (running shoes) and have been wearing those. And my foot hasn't been hurting.

BUT, I also haven't been walking for 5+ hours at a time.

If the foot is fine, then it's fine. To test it, I need to walk for five hours (or less if it starts hurting earlier).

If the foot's fine, then I don't really need the appointment.

If the foot isn't fine, then the physical therapist is at a lost and will suggest that I go back to the clinic physician and ask for a referal to a podiatrist. Or, I can just accept that when I walk 5+ hours, my foot will get sore and leave it at that.

And that's what I'm leaning towards: leave it at that. I can't really imagine a podiatrist is going to do anything helpful that doesn't involve a risk of something worse (like surgery), and I don't think the pain is that bad or happens that often to go through surgery about it.

Click!

I met with a student about an assignment recently. Stu wanted to run an idea about organizing a paper with me; zie'd started off thinking X, but was now thinking Y (a MUCH more sophisticated understanding), and wanted to know if it was okay to reflect that in the paper, and if it was, how could zie do that.

YAY!

I told Stu that I was impressed by the development, and we went over one or two organizational possibilities. Stu was in that moment of having realized how much zie is learning in classes (not only mine) and wanted to talk about hir learning, and it was delightful.

Often, students learn a lot, but it takes time to realize that they've learned, and they're long gone from our classes by the time they realize it (if ever). But every once in a while, you get a student who's ready at just that moment to learn and realize hir learning, and it's so fun to hear about hir excitement.

Trifles

Little niggling things are on my mind today.

Last Friday, the handyman went to the house to check on a lighting fixture that wasn't working and on the stairs to my deck, which have never been quite right. And while he was there, he glanced up at the roof and then told me that I need to get the house reroofed. (He doesn't do roofs.)

He gave me a couple of suggestions for people whose work he respecs, and I called them. One called back this morning to make an appointment to give me an estimate, and the other I'm waiting to hear (they thought they should be able to look and measure stuff for the estimate without my being there).

Bleargh. I was thinking that I might replace the ugly carpet in my living room with hardwood this spring, but I think roofing's more important. (And I'm really glad he pointed out the roof issues, because I don't look up there enough, and I would far rather replace it early than deal with leak damage.)

***

In our department coffee room, we have: a toaster, a coffee maker, a microwave, and a water-heater (for tea or whatever) all plugged into the same area (because there are very few plugs around in this building compared to what you'd put in a building nowadays). You can use any two things, and it's okay, but if you use a third thing, you'll blow the circuit and then you have to call maintenance and get them to come up and do something in their secret locked room.

So today, I had some stuff to microwave for lunch and wanted hot tea as well, so I put my stuff in the microwave while someone else was using the toaster. Then I waited, and once my microwaving was done, started the water heating. The toaster finished and then another person started the microwave for her lunch.

And then another person came in and without looking at what was already going, started up the toaster.

Poof. No water heating, no lunch heating, nada. So I never got my hot tea, and now my caffeine levels are dangerously low in the late afternoon (which is at least partly my fault because I was up way too late finishing some grading).

***

An advisee came in on Friday and asked me questions about a class over in another area of campus (one we have a fair bit of contact with). On the computer registration system, the lecture and discussion for one class are scheduled so that they overlap. I don't know what's up.

So this morning, I emailed their chair to ask what I should suggest to my advisee. And she helpfully emailed back.

I don't know whether it's a department problem or a computer problem or somewhere in between, but it's not good when they're telling me to tell my student not to register yet. It's really hard to get into classes, and if she got lucky with a good time assignment this semester, she needs to take advantage of it because she probably won't have the same luck twice.

***

I have one of those students. You know, the student who makes you really happy you chose to become a professor. If I could clone him, all our lives would be immensely better in so many ways.

Total Joy

It's gloriously warm out today! I went out for the first bike ride of the year, and it was happiness. Every time I saw another biker I would wave and call "Yay biking!" and they would be grinning, too, and you could tell we were all happy to be out playing on our bikes.

I've opened up some of the windows in the house to air things out, and I'm thinking of going and sitting out on the deck in the sunshine. It's just that good to have the combination of sunshine and warmth.

Last week, I planted some pine seeds I'd collected (some from the two pine cones under my own tree, some from white and red pines in a local parkish area (it's the parking lot for the community swimming pool). So they're sitting outside now, too, in the sunshine.

The sunshine and warmth just fills me with joy.

Communicating

I was at a meeting this morning, a meeting of folks from around the university, students, faculty, administrators, lots of different people. And we were there in part to hear about efforts to introduce a specific diversity program thing on campus. All of that is to say that there were people there who were very versed in the issue, but mostly there were people there who were committed to social justice but who weren't really in the know about this specific issue. One person (let's call this person X) is basically in charge of the next move, and had to leave early for another commitment, so the facilitator changed around the schedule slightly to ask X to talk about the next move.

But then someone else wondered if the whole group should get a quick background. And that made sense.

So another speaker started in on the background. Let's call this speaker Y.

This speaker comes from a culture known for being less direct about arguments, say, than US culture is. And so the speaker started in, and 20 minutes later, when the person facilitating the meeting (let's call this person Z) tried to interrupt the narrative to refocus on the issue at hand, Y got frustrated because zie hadn't had the chance to tell the full story. Y said zie wanted to make one point, and when Z acquiesced, went on for another five minutes not only about one point, but circling around serveral. To me, Y's communication feels like we're circling around, getting a long narrative about stuff that isn't the real point, and not really getting to the real point. (I've experienced Y's communication on many occasions.)

So here's the issue: We're all committed to social justice, and many of us have put in some time to learn about cultural issues of communication. So I know, for example, that the culture person Y comes from tends to be less direct than my own culture (white, US, middle/upper middle class). And I know that in order to work effectively towards social justice, I need to learn about, recognize, and value other styles of communication.

And that means that I (and other people at the meeting, at least some of whom are far more well-educated in understanding different cultures) need to respect non-dominant sorts of communication.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that Y's communication practices are cultural so much as unaware rhetorically. I don't know if Y's communication practices would be more acceptable in hir home culture than they are here.

And, by being rhetorically unaware, Y seems to undercut hir own stated goals, to alienate listeners, and thus to cause problems for the very cause we're working for.

Of course, these are issues some of our students run into a lot: to what extent should they be responsible for code-switching to meet the expectations of people who aren't going to care about cultural differences? And to what extent should dominant US culture learn to respect and deal with other communication practices? And even if we can assert that people from the dominant US culture SHOULD respect and deal with other communication practices, it's not going to happen quickly or easily, and our students are going to be out there working and being members of the community the whole time.

So there I was, wanting Y to get to the point so that X could give us the more important information, and wanting to be a good cultural communicator.

And looking around the room, I could see other people looking similarly frustrated and impatient. And I don't think frustrating these people helped Y's causes at all.

Road Trip!

Text o' the day!

Bits of Sunday

I sometimes call myself "The U-turn Queen." Let's just acknowledge that I have a poor sense of direction. I used to fret about it, but now I just make myself the u-turn and it's fine.

Yesterday, I went out cross-country skiing for only the second time this season. I went alone, out to this gorgeous, wonderful park. This park has a maze of trails, but they're marked with numbers and a map at intersections. The numbers get higher the further you are from the warming hut and parking lot.

And I skied. I'm a lousy skier, but as long as I'm out enjoying myself, it doesn't much matter how clumsy I look. And for moments at a time, I float along and it's glorious! Just wonderful!

I was skiing along, and at first it was totally awkward and blah, and I thought about turning around and heading back right away. And then it started feeling good. I was going slowly, focusing on trying to slide and relax, and it felt good. So I went a bit further. And then I thought I should head back rather than get too tired, so I looked at where I was, and planned my move to the next intersection, and then I needed to go left. But that took me to a hill, and I snowplowed down it with great care (because I felt awkward and it's sort of icy).

But at the next intersection, the sign was shot out. I know :( Think about someone peppering a sign with shot, and think about that sign being in a public park. Ugh. So I went the way I thought would take me back without making me climb that hill. And there were hills, and I snowplowed down, and herring-boned up.

And the next sign I got to was #65, and showed that I was at about the half way point of a long side-loop. Oops! I could have made a u-turn, but I didn't because I figured the way forward couldn't be as difficult as the way back. It was about that difficult, but I finally did make it back. (I DID whuss out and take off my skis to climb up two hills and down one.) Every so often someone else would ski by in the opposite direction (mostly, friendly folks, who said hi), so it wasn't like I was exactly breaking new ground in the wilderness.

All in all, I skied for an hour and 40 minutes, and my heart monitor said I used 900 calories. No wonder I was hungry! And now today, I'm just a bit sore. (I've read that heart monitors tend to overestimate caloric use, but still, that's a lot of calories.)

But, Paris-Nice will be on TV shortly (the prologue)! I, myself, am planning to ride along for a bit. Yay, it's the beginning of the TV biking season!

I should grade a bunch today, too, and I will. And I've already written the midterm for tomorrow, so at least that's done!

Witchy Woman

I'm going to do my senior seminar next semester on early modern witch plays (and some historical context stuff).

Macbeth is on the list, of course. Because yay Macbeth.

What other plays (and in which editions) have you enjoyed or thought would work well in a classroom?

So far, The Witch of Edmonton is HIGH on my list, and maybe The Tempest, too. But there are lots (so maybe not LOTS, but some), and I'm aiming for, say, 10 plays that I can get in reasonably good, affordable editions.

I have a week to turn in my book orders (it's so early!). I know that's a whole congressional mandate thing, but it's obvious that no one in congress ever thought about teaching anything that wasn't constantly on the rotation or taught from a textbook type book.

Sleep In

Yesterday, we had snow, and that meant I got a few emails from students who couldn't make it to class. It happens, and it's way more important that students are safe than that they get to close. And when road conditions are bad, they're bad.

But today, more students missed my morning class. And I got emails from them after class, a few of them, saying basically that they'd slept in and missed class.

It's weird how that can happen with a fair number of students in a class (three for this class). Did they go out partying last night? Was there a midnight dorm fire alarm drill thing? Or was it just coincidence?

Bird Feeder

This isn't the best picture because the light was getting low when I finished digging out the driveway (thanks to my wonderful neighbor for his help!) and went inside and looked out the back window to see this. The darkish blotches are feathers, I think body/warming feathers, and they're not actually that small.

There weren't any mammal footprints around, but you can see there's a small disturbance on the right. (The shadowy area on the left is where I tossed out some seed this morning so the juncoes and other birds who feed more on the ground could get some despite the snow.)

It looks like it's a bird feeder in more than one way, eh?

You Have to Wonder

There's a student in one of my classes who's been to class I think three times all semester (we're now in week six or seven). Zie hasn't turned in much work, and what zie has turned in has been very poor.

Today, we got snow, a good bit of it, but not enough to close our campus. And today, for the first time, zie sent me an email saying that zie regretted that zie would be missing class today, and could I email information about what we are doing in class.

So I did. But it just makes me wonder why all of a sudden zie thinks I won't have noticed all the missing work.

And then I followed up with an email suggesting zie drop the class because it's pretty much mathematically impossible for hir to pass the class at this point.

Ottoman

So, this refers to a text, but isn't quite right. I guess that makes it all the more difficult, eh? Bonus for anyone who knows not only the play but what's wrong with this picture (exclusive of the art, because, well, just because).

Argh

I sort of lost my temper in class today. It's not like I yelled, but I told a student to quit talking a second time, because she kept chattering, and not about what we were discussing, and while another student was trying to speak on topic.

I get so tired of that sort of rude behavior.

But I'm going to pay for it on my evaluations, I bet.

Goals, Outcomes, and Excellence Without Money*

There's a variety of curricular stuff going on here at NWU, much of it aimed at trying to improve our dismal 4 year graduation rates and much of it aimed at trying to reduce our costs because the state is again reducing it's support for public education and also not allowing us to raise tuition. Both of these factors are important, and have been for a number of years, and a lot of people here have been working on trying to figure out how to educate students more quickly and more cheaply.

So, there's been a lot of brainstorming for several years in all sorts of places, and folks have come up with some pretty good solutions. And now one of the big shots has put a stop to the process and put it in the hands of the new assessment guru to bring things into line with goals and outcomes (seriously, I've never heard those words distinguished in a meaningful way, but all the assessment people insist that they're separate and distinct).

Here's what I'd like to see actually on the goals/outcomes lines, right at the top:

Reduce costs.
Reduce average time to degree.
Increase four year graduation rates.

I want them up there because those are the things driving the curriculum right now and I think we should be honest about that.


*I first encountered the "Excellence without Money" thing at Roxie's World. Credit where credit is due, so long as it doesn't require any actual money!

ps. Even though this sounds backwards, the brainstorming has always started from a "what do we want students to learn" point, even if the new assessment guru wasn't in the room.

Guess What I'm Prepping?

You Might Think...

You might think that being late with my SAA paper this past week would make me a bit more patient about students being late with stuff, but you would be wrong.

I don't know what it is, maybe I'm tired after a rough week, but I'm not feeling patient. I try not to let it show, of course.

I really need this weekend!

I am that...

You know, that one, the student who needs an extension, the person who procrastinates, the prof who doesn't get something done on time.

I finally did get it done, and though I missed the real deadline, I turned it in before the extension deadline, with a strong thank you to the organizers. (The it is my SAA seminar paper, and it's done, and just under the word limit, if you don't count footnotes.*)

It feels SO good to have that part done. That's good. It's bad that it feels so good that I don't want to turn my attention to the many other things I need to get done now (especially, need I say, some grading).

Committee time soon. Bleargh.



* And thanks to Flavia, I didn't add a note whining about how hard it was to cut it down. :)

Text o' the Day!

Spring

I'm so ready for spring that it hurts. And it's probably a good two months away at best, and three at worst.

Dear Proserpina,

Come on up early!

Yours, Bardiac

***Edited to add: I'm not alone! The crocuses and daffodils are peeking above the soil in my yard! (I realize they'll soon be covered with snow. Still!)

Petty Irritations

I'm grading along in a pile of journals, and I grade Steve Student's journal for the day. And then right behind it, in the middle of the pile, is Steve Student's journal from the previous week. (These are journal assignments where the students have to turn in 10, but they have 15 opportunities over the course of the semester.)

I've already turned back the previous week's journals (before this week's were turned in).

Does Steve Student really think I won't notice? Does he think I'll think I lost his journal assignment before?

I'm guessing this strategy has worked for Steve before, because every year, some student (or more than one) does this sort of thing, putting an assignment due previously into a current stack. And they wouldn't be doing it in college if they didn't think it would work.

Of course, if I were horribly behind on grading and had all the stuff in the same pile, it might work. But I'm not and I don't.

The thing is, I have to give some response, right? That is, I guess, I feel like I have to be ready to prove to a complaining student that I didn't accept the journal because it's late, and I can demonstrate it's lateness, and I need to be able to do that with no context because when the student complains, I won't have the rest of the pile surrounding the paper and such.

I usually put something along the lines of "this journal is late (and was in the middle of a pile of journals all dated this week), and I don't accept late journals."

I'm not just being petty in not accepting these late. One of the points of the assignment is that it helps students prepare for that day's discussion. It's a starting point, and not something the student should write after having listened to other peoples' ideas. (There are other assignments for responding to discussion and such.)

Focus

Our enrollment cap for our first year writing course is 28. Sometimes the powers that be add another for 29, but you get the idea. It's a big class, way bigger than any of our professional organizations sees as a "best practice."

The numbers are a problem in big, obvious ways. But they're also a problem in little ways. My problem today is with focus.

I collected some journals and quizzes from the class today. The journals are frequent short writing assignments (most don't write a full page) to which I respond mostly with short, positive comments in the margins and a quick 1-10 grade. (At least the short, positive comments are my goal.) All sorts of writing research suggests that short writing assignments that someone responds to are a good practice in all sorts of classes, and especially in writing classes. I'm convinced by the research, so I use them in my classes.

I can do 12 of these in short order, well-focused and not too frustrated. And if I saw that I had only a few more to grade, I'd power through the last four or five easily enough. But when I look and see that I have more to grade than I've graded, I find it difficult to keep my focus. And that means that I stop grading and write a whiny blog post or something instead of powering through.

Okay, now I have to get back to that last part of the stack. And then the quizzes.

Bonus: Almost all the students are now actually citing their source in the journal! YAY! (Yes, I care. Citing sources should be habit for assignments in college.)

Privileged Problem

I just turned back a set of papers that were fairly typical first year writing class papers. Overall, they were dismal in the way that such papers tend to be, but since students have an opportunity to revise them for a different grade, it's not horrific.

But I hate turning back papers. I find it stressful.

The students flip to the grade, and then they tend to look down, and I know they feel bad, and I don't want them to feel bad. I want them to write really good papers.

I know they've tried hard, but there's a point where trying hard doesn't always lead to stunning success. I can try as hard as I want, practice with massive diligence, and still, I won't succeed in the NBA. Or on the Tour. (And then, of course, there are degrees of "trying hard." I may ride really hard for an hour, but that doesn't compare to spending six or more hours on a bike just about every day of the week. Similarly, what counts as hard work for one student may not for another.) And I'm not grading effort.

Organizing

We're talking curricular stuff in lit again, and I'm trying to think about how we can organize our lit major.

At this point, we're organized in terms of time/geography, mostly, with a nod to some other areas. So, for example, we require students to take an early Brit, late Brit, early Am, late Am, Am ethnic, World, and Women's lit. We allow students to double count a women's lit course. (So, for example, a course on American Indian Women writers could count for women's lit and Am ethnic lit. Or it could count for an earlier OR later Am lit and women's lit. But it can't count for both Am and Am ethnic lit for one student.) (These are in addition to some core courses in theory, linguistics, and text studies.)

There are difficulties, and some folks think we need to change.

I'm looking for other ways to think about organizing an English lit major. The core has to be something that the department as a whole agrees with, but we can rethink our lit part. And I need your help. Can you point me to interesting ways to organize an English lit major, please?



ps. We have other English majors, and they organize their stuff as they think best. We work with a common core for our students, and students can take courses in other areas somewhat.

Here are a couple I've looked at:

Harvard


UCLA

Duke

(I've just glanced around, and these are some that seem not to be basically time/geography based.)

A Quick Note from the Grading Pile

My writing students have been working on an essay about the liberal arts in response to some readings we've worked through together.

More than one students' insight has to do with how the school should make them aware of the liberal arts aspect of their education and how our school is totally failing at this.

Um.

Ethics and Manners Questions

We aren't in an area where we have a bunch of highly qualified people willing to adjunct. But we'd like to have well-qualified adjuncts who do a good job (and the majority of our adjuncts fit here). And we're sure they're out there, but we're not sure they'd want to move here for an unstable adjuncting job or even that they have any way of knowing that we have adjunct positions available.

Let's imagine we have 1 TT job. We interview six folks, any one of whom would be wonderful, but we're only allowed to hire ONE person, so we do the best job we can to hire the person who seems best. And maybe we have two adjuncting positions, too. They don't pay as much, and there's minimal job security (though most adjuncts in my department do get benefits and full time jobs most semesters; we don't fire good adjuncts on a whim, either).

What are the ethics of sending the other five folks (or a couple of them) a letter (after the polite phone call to let them know the bad news) saying that we've got some adjunct positions, and we'd love to have them apply.

I know it would feel beyond crappy to get one of those letters, like, you don't want to hire me to TT, but you want me to work cheaply as an adjunct?

But would even that feeling be better than not knowing about a possible job opportunity?

If there were such a situation, what sorts of other factors would make moving here better for adjuncts? For example, all our adjuncts have offices, though they share offices. Most of our adjuncts have benefits (because they've got full-time or near full-time equivalent work). I'm not saying we do a great job treating our adjuncts well, but what factors are most important that we can manage? I can't manage my colleague's sometimes rude behavior, or the fact that the state pays adjuncts worse than it pays faculty, and that it doesn't pay faculty especially well. Mostly our adjuncts will teach writing and intro level department courses, too, and that's not something we can easily change.

Offices
Benefits
Travel funds, but very limited (for all of us)
Professional development opportunities

What other factors are most important? Is it worth sending out such a letter?

That, in Aleppo Once

I'm going to confess something really embarrasing. Try not to think too poorly of me for it.

I first read Othello at about the age of 27, and I didn't have any idea where Aleppo, or Rhodes, or Cypress really were. I had the vaguest of vague ideas that they were somewhere in the middle east, but they may have been Lothlorien for all I could place them on a map or say anything about them that didn't involve Othello.

Only after I taught a seminar on the Other in early modern drama and started to read historical stuff about the Ottoman empire and such did I sort of realize what a fascinating and complex area the middle east and Mediterranean are. But they're still nothing like as real or vivid in my imagination as England (not even the whole of the UK, because I know little about Ireland, and only a bit more about Scotland and Wales), South America (specifically Ecuador), and Japan.

But still, when I heard this morning on the radio about the explosions in Aleppo, my mind went first to Othello. It shouldn't, but it did.

Rewards

I've been conferencing with a number of my writing students this past week. On Tuesday afternoon, I talked with a student about a draft of a paper due Wednesday. The paper was all over the place, trying to do two or three arguments, and not really doing any.

But we talked, and the student really wanted to make one argument, so we drew out a rough outline and I suggested the student put away the draft and begin completely again. And she was politely resistant, but I assured her that would be best. And we talked about an extension until Friday to turn in the essay, and that was that.

Today she came to my office hours to talk about her new draft, and it was such a smart, well-written draft. I had one substantial suggestion about how she talked about an example doing two things, though it only did one thing. And right away, she saw that using a second example to show the second thing separately would work, and she had a good example. So we made a note (because making a note means it's easier to remember when you get down to the writing part).

It was great. She'd totally left the other draft behind, and talked about how hard it was to do that, but how it had been the right thing. And while she was worried that this draft wouldn't actually be good, she was also hopeful that it was, because she felt good about it (but was, in that very understandable way, not confident).

So now she's learned something important about drafting and redrafting. And with good reason, she's enthusiastic about the result she just got.

She made my day. It was a good day, but now it's way better than good.

It's great when students take some suggestion, do the hard work, and really put together a fine draft.

Deflating the Day

I dislike grade quibbles. No, I should say, I really dislike grade quibbles. By quibbles, I mean the sort of grade questions that aren't about substance, but are about one or two points on an assignment that's a small part of things.

I especially hate when a student tells me that another student got a better grade for writing the same thing. I have a feeling that they haven't written exactly the same thing (or one of them might have plagiarized). But the student doesn't see it, and I don't have both pieces of paper in front of me.

I also hate the question about why a student "lost" a point, or why I took a point away. From my point of view, the paper earns points or a grade, starting with an F for a blank piece of paper, and hopefully moving up from there. But from the point of view of the student who asks about losing a point, s/he started with a perfect paper and I, yes, I, took away points. Or they got lost somewhere. And both of those are about me being bad.

And I really hate the students who see their point quibbles as a sort of lawyering.

The thing is, the quibbles I'm talking about are a difference of maybe 2 points out of a hundred possible on an assignment or group of small assignments that are 10% of the total grade. So we're talking about .2 on the final grade.

Now, of course, it's vital that I as the teacher treat all students fairly, but it's also true that I as a human being get a bad taste in my mouth from this sort of quibbling.

I would much rather have a student talk to me about how to do better on assignments, especially if they come talk to me before the assignment is due (which I encourage). I like to talk to students, and I'll do my best to help them write a good assignment.

But the quibbling. I think it's that quibbling about that one or two point difference feels to me like the student thinks I'm totally random in grading and not to be trusted at all. Yes, I realize that sometimes students feel that way, but it's exhausting and demoralizing, especially when it comes along with hearing the governor and politicians go on about how horrible we faculty folks are and how overpaid.

A Not Quite Random Encounter

I went shoe shopping yesterday. I wasn't thrilled about it, but my physical therapist suggested I get running shoes that limit pronation and such because he's stumped. He doesn't know what's happening, but this might help.

He keeps asking me if the doctor has ordered any bone scan sort of stuff, and from the questions, I get the sense that he thinks she should have. But she's the one with the MD. And the two alternatives she gave me were to try physical therapy or try a podiatrist, and she recommended the physical therapy.

Anyway, I thought I'd give the more structured shoes a try, and hope for the best. And if they don't help, then I have to decide if it's worth pursuing further, since it's not a disabling pain or anything.

At the store, I talked to the running salesperson about what he suggested, and she started showing me the super structured shoes and the medium structured shoes. (Quite a difference from my five fingers, which I love, and have tried to emulate in other shoes. Oops.) The super structured ones were a bit uncomfortable. And the three pairs of medium ones were all pretty darned comfortable. And priced pretty closely.

So I was doing the thing where you put a different sort of shoe on each foot and try them and walk around and compare.

Meanwhile, another woman was sitting nearby, trying on walking shoes. And while our salespeople had gone off to find other samples or something, we chatted. She started it by saying something about my running and her walking. And I responded by saying as long as we were both playing outside, we won because getting out makes all the difference, and I said something about biking. She said she'd never much liked biking even as a kid. And I asked her if she'd tried a recumbent bike, because they're way cool.

She said that she was 87 and not going to take up biking now. To be clear, she said this in a totally friendly, amused, happy way.

And I was FLOORED. I'd figured her for maybe somewhere between 60 and 65. She walked with a spark, and she held herself with animation, and I just NEVER would have guessed her for 20+ years older. And I told her so.

And then we went back to talking about how great it is to get outside and exercise.

I think she's living proof that there's something good in it.

Meeting Madness

Quick question first: is anyone else having an issue with blogger where you'll hit publish, and it will say it's published, and then you hit view blog and what you thought was published wasn't? So you do it again, and it's still not? And then a couple of tries later, it is?



I'm on this committee I hate. I hate it because it's basically a rubber stamp committee. We're supposed to review stuff, but any time we dare to really question something, the deanling in charge gets defensive and cranky.

Recently, for example, we were reviewing a change for the NWU catalog.

There was the change, and then a short note at the bottom explaining the logic behind the change, and that logic had to do with making the information clearer.

Okay.

Faculty #1: I think it's confusing, it sounds like X, but it's supposed to be Y.

Faculty #2: No, I think it's actually supposed to be X.

Faculty #3: Really? Because I thought Y.

Faculty #1: The note says it's Y. But in the catalog, that note won't be there, so they should change it to clarify.

Deanling: It's not confusing to the people who need the information.

Faculty #1: I think the fact that three faculty members express confusion demonstrates that it's confusing, and I don't think students will be better readers of this information.

Deanling: It's not confusing.

What I wanted to say, but did not: Either listen when we say something needs clarification, or we can just give you the rubber stamp and go back to our offices where we can actually do meaningful work.

Endnote: the deanling did finally agree to suggest to the writer that it wasn't quite clear, and to pass along the committee's recommendation for making it clearer. Basically, I have a feeling this means that the deanling will say that the faculty were fussing about this but that zie doesn't think it's worth changing.

Hoarfrost

It's hard to catch how magical hoarfrost looks in a picture. Or at least I haven't really figured it out. It's partly, I think, the way that human eyes see the big picture, and the light, and also smaller parts, while I can't seem to capture all that with a photo. Nonetheless, here's a taste of the magic in my yard when it got light this morning!

XKCD For The Win!

XKCD is often brilliant and funny, but today's is really good.

You should go there and read bunches! (And be sure to scroll over the image to read a comment; the comments add a lot!)

But in the meantime:

Grading Thoughts

No matter how good writing is (say, essays, or journals), there's a point where reading them is just work. I'm at that point with one of the assignments I'm grading. The first few were good to read. The next few tolerable. And now I'm to the part where they're just work to grade.

In writing a journal assignment, one of the writing students said zie was in the class because zie had to be. Seriously, I know how that feels. I'm in the class because my paycheck depends on it. Every day, I'm in the class because my paycheck depends on it. And I try to make it a really good class and a good learning experience because I think that's my ethical responsibility and also because doing poorly would make me less happy. But it's not like I come to work and teach comp just for the sheer pleasure.

I went to bed at about 8:30 last night, and I feel so much better today. Sleep is a wonderful thing!

Inefficient

Today is a non-teaching day for me; with an 11 credit hour schedule, that can work. But I have two important letters to write (review letters) due next week, an observation report, stacks of grading, and an SAA paper to write. Classes to prep for tomorrow, too.

I've been here for over two hours, and have:

Written part of the observation report. But not finished. I want to look at how other people do one part, so I went to find others, but I can't. They should be on file. It probably isn't good that they aren't.

Looked for some other stuff I need. Maybe that can count as gathering materials?


Here's the to-do list for now and the near future:

Finish this report
Grade comp journals
Grade comp quizzes
Grade Shax journals
Grade seminar journals (hmmm, there's a theme here)
Grade Shax research questions
Grade seminar research questions (the research questions should be quick; it's a really basic start to getting students to think of questions they'd like to know more information about, if that makes sense.)
Prep for letter #1 - there are two sections to each of these
Write letter #1
Prep for letter #2
Write letter #2

Prep comp
Prep Shax
Prep seminar

SAA paper!

Help Request!

I have a request for those who are better historians than I: one of my students is trying to learn about sibling relationships in early modern England, and in early modern English drama. The student has read and followed up on the family history books I've recommended, but I'm drawing a blank on anything specifically related to siblings (especially brother and sister).

Please post or email any ideas! And thank you :)

If Taxes Were Like WoW

! It's Time to Do Taxes!

Choose one: download a tax program OR visit your local library

? Congratulations! You found a tax program. You get:
**10 life experience
**Your faction with Corporate America increased by 5!


! Pay the Program

Give the tax program your credit card information! (This may involve a subquest: Find the Wallet?)

? You successfully entered your credit card information. Well done! You get:
**a credit card charge


! Where are the Forms?

The Tax Program needs help! It wants you to find:

* Your W-2 form
* 1099 Div forms
* Charitable donation receipts
* Real Estate tax forms
* 1098 Mort forms
* Expense information

Bring these forms to your computer. Hurry, Bardiac! The national debt is growing every minute! In order to make this quest more challenging, we've disabled in-life mapping. Hurry!

? Good job, Bardiac! You got here just in time. The national debt is about to explode! You found all the forms you needed. You get:
**1 paper cut experiences


! AGI is not Agility! (low level)

The program can't go on without information from last year's tax return! Brave the piles of paperwork and find the form.

? You're looking pretty ragged, Bardiac, but at least you got the forms and got out alive. You get:
**1 sneezing fit


! Input Information!

Work carefully, Bardiac, and put all the numbers in the right place! If you make a mistake, you may be audited, so be extra careful and double check everything!

? You input the numbers, but something appears to be wrong. You get:
**25 additional blood pressure points!


! Recheck the Numbers!

The tax program has detected a problem, Bardiac! Go back and recheck all the numbers, just to make sure.

? You've checked and rechecked the numbers, but the tax program can't quite believe what it sees. Are you sure that all professors don't make six figure incomes? You get:
**10 experience with depression


! Find the State! (low level)

The tax program needs you to find your state and download the state program. If you didn't pay for it yet, redo Pay the Program quest.

? You chose Walkerstan as your state! You sure aren't smart, Bardiac! You get:
**10 experience with regret


! Input More Information

The state program has successfully inported the numbers you put in your federal return (better hope you did that right!). Now it needs to check some special tax breaks for your state. Choose one or more from the list:

* I have farm income
* I'm a homesteader
* I'm a corporate raider
* I suck

? You chose "I suck," Bardiac! Well done! You get no special tax breaks from Walkerstan. Do not collect $200! You get:
**20 more points of blood pressure


! Submit your Taxes!

The program is ready to submit your taxes, Bardiac. All you have to do is enter your checking account information. We promise not to take out any money we're not supposed to. Really!

? Congratulations, Bardiac! You submitted your taxes! You get:
** a tax refund, soon... we hope; that and $5 will get you a small coffee at *$.
** your faction with the IRS increased! (Now at "taxpayer")
** your faction with state government increased! (Now at "hostile")
** your roads still won't be well-maintained, nor will state workers ever get a raise.

On Assigning Papers Early and Often

The folks who do and read lots of comp research tell me that several things help students write better:

1) Writing lots and getting feedback
2) Writing for different purposes, talking about purposes, getting feedback

I've taken that information to heart. The assignments my students have turned in so far have all been short, low stakes assignments. In two of the four cases, the assignment asks them to write a paragraph. A single paragraph of writing gives me a chance to underline something and write in the margin "interesting idea" or "indeed!" I can give short responses, mostly responding to an idea. And I can mark one grammatical problem (if there is one), or remind the student to cite the text, and because I've marked one thing and it's there along with a positive comment, the student can manage looking at it and thinking about it. (And the grading isn't overwhelming for me, either.)

The paragraphs are also a starting point for one bit of class discussion. So those students who feel slow-tongued are prepared and can use it to say something.

One of the four assignments is a summary of a short reading, also short and low stakes. But summarizing is a skill students need to practice, as is reading carefully, so this written assignment is a start.

The final of the four is a short diagnostic piece (for the writing class) about why they're here at NWU. It's ungraded, and I use it to get to know students a bit, to spot really big writing issues early, and to have a chance to give students some positive feedback on their writing.

In each of these courses, students will write other sorts of writing, and will continue to write short pieces as well.

And Then There Were Four...

piles of papers I need to work on.

I'm falling behind, and it's still the first week! EEP!

Today's tasks (now that I'm done teaching for the day):
read play for tomorrow
read journals for writing class
read journals for Shakespeare
prep classes for tomorrow

and maybe, just maybe, read some more writing diagnostics
somewhere in here, I also have to prep and do some committee work.

Do Unto Yourself

By the end of the second day of teaching in my week (Wednesday), I had a stack of papers for each of the three courses I'm teaching this semester.

I did that to myself.

At least most of them are really short (paragraph assignments), and the others are short diagnostics for the writing class, so I won't grade them, just get to know the students a bit and be alerted to some potential problems.

Still, I did it to myself. And now I have to go read more of the diagnostics.

More Syllabus Talk

We tend to discuss teaching stuff a fair bit around here, and the other day, the question of "participation" as part of the grade (and also attendance as part of the grade) came up.

So now I'm wondering, do you folks grade "participation"? And if you do, what counts as "participation" for you? And how do you keep track in a meaningful way?

Do you count attendance in your grades?


Me? I don't count either. We're required to tell students our attendance policy, which suggests that the administration here thinks we count attendance as part of the grade. And indeed, since I read syllabi from across campus, I know lots of people do.

I don't, for a couple of reasons (and the same goes for attendance). On the practical side, it's a pain in the rear to keep track of. I mean, do you mark next to someone's name when they say something in class? What if they say something great, and someone else says something really non-contributive, do they count the same? To be honest, I do my best to facilitate discussions and such, but I can't do that even decently and try to keep track of who's saying what or how often.

I also think that what I really want in class is students who try and are cooperative and respectful with me and each other. But grading that is like grading people wiping their rears.

As far as attendance, I hate the gaming of who gets what excuse and why. The school gives official excused absences for music and sports travel, but I think if someone's kid is sick (or heck, if their dog is sick), then they've made a good decision to prioritize the kid over attending class.

The thing is, I rarely have poor participation or poor attendance in my classes. And when someone isn't attending, they usually have something serious happening and their term is screwed up anyway. And if someone doesn't participate, it may mean that they process verbally slowly, and they may write a really thoughtful paper, or come up with something cool for a project, or whatever. The important thing isn't saying something in class, but learning stuff. I do think that most people learn best when they learn in a variety of ways and by hearing other people learning and by trying out ideas and such and being wrong occasionally. For most people, then, being in a room with other people actively learning helps them learn. Of course, being in a private tutorial would likely be even better for some, but it's not financially realistic here.

And, knock on wood, I almost never have had a student be actively non-cooperative in class. I've had students who can't keep their mouths shut, yes, but when I ask people to, say, freewrite, most of them seem to be doing that. And when I ask them to work in groups, I haven't had anyone refuse.

So why make a rule about something that's so rare that it's not a problem?

I DO try to be really conscious every single day I teach of making that time valuable and worthwhile for everyone in the room. I want students to go away every single day glad that they came to class, glad that they learned something, glad that they've had the experience. I don't always succeed.

There may be regional issues. Students here in the midwest are pretty darned polite, and they're likely to be outwardly cooperative and polite, even if they think something's really stupid or irritating. They're likely to come to class because they're self-selected to be here and have been long trained that being in class is important.

Waht do you do? Why?

High Anxiety

The first weeks of a term are stressful for lots of students. It's especially stressful for students dealing with new stuff: a new area of study, a new instructor, a new level. The stress comes out in weird behavior. They aren't necessarily bad behaviors, but just a tad off in some way.

For example, in one class, we started looking at the syllabus. We're supposed to list and talk about the whole NWU goals thing, and I'm actually obedient enough to do so. So we've started, and a student's hand shoots up. I give her the go ahead to ask, and she says, "are we going to do X?" Where X is a campus activity towards the end of the semester. She's looking at the course calendar, and X is listed, because it's handy to know when X is. But that's it.

So why ask about that at that point? I guess she was bored by the goals stuff and skipped ahead, and was anxious and needed an immediate answer. I probably should have told her to wait until we got there.

I got an email this morning asking if instead of writing a paragraph about a word in a passage of lit, the student could write about a line. Writing about a line would be better, the student wrote. Except the assignment asks you to write about a word, so I probably think a word will be a good thing to write about. And I know it's just the student being anxious and wanting to do really well, but it's a paragraph that's going to work out to be one percent of the course grade. Try to do the actual assignment before asking to modify it, please.

I've also had the email about what they were supposed to do with this reading I'd asked them to do and given instructions about. (Read to short pieces, grade them as essays, and make some notes about why you'd give the grade you gave.) Sometimes students are too anxious to really hear stuff in class. That's okay the first day, because it's normal to be anxious and we teach the students we have. But it strikes me as inattentive.

Then there's the person who has to give the answer, but doesn't really know anything deeper than a word. What happened during this period (in a class on early modern lit, to get some context going)?

Student: Humanism!

Me: Great, what's humanism?

Student: Ummmm.

Do you not know what the word means but you use it as if it's the answer? Do you not expect a follow up question? (The same thing happens with "renaissance" and "reformation." Those are good words, but you need to know something about them if you're going to bring them up.)

And then there's me. You know how sometimes you say something mildly (or perhaps not so mildly) inappropriate and then dig yourself deeper? I did that. We were reading over the required statement about plagiarism, in which I say that I'll follow through with the NWU policy to an appropriate conclusion. That wasn't inappropriate. What was inappropriate was that I made a verbal aside that I thought drawing and quartering was an appropriate conclusion, but the university wouldn't go along with it. And then of course I had to explain what drawing and quartering were/are.

Jitters

It's crazy, but after teaching in one way or another for 20+ years, I have the jitters this morning, the first day of classes.

I'm well-prepared. And yet, I have the jitters. I couldn't get to sleep well last night, and I got to the office early. And still, I have the jitters.

I know I'll calm down once I get into a class, but this is just silly.

The Lean

My neighbor's dog is visiting for part of the weekend, and it's delightful. When I sit down, she sits next to me and does the lean thing. (Outside, when we greet, she also does the standing lean.) I figure the lean thing means that she's content to sit with me and be near. Small dogs do the lean, too, but it's way more convincing from a bigger dog. I imagine a mastiff would be pretty darned convincing, but a lab is perfectly fine.

When her own people appear, then of course I'm beneath notice, unless she's been with her own people and is greeting me. Or if her own people are coming back, she's happy to include me in her general happiness once she's expressed her total joy at their appearance for a few minutes.

She came out to scrape the drive with me this morning, and after a bit, she did the one foot up thing, so I put her inside. That was not good; it would have been far better if I'd kept the pack together and come inside, too. She let me know this by barking while I finished up the drive.

Then we went out to do the back deck, which is shaded in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. And within a very few minutes, she was doing the thing where dogs try to hold up four feet all at the same time, so I let her back in. She got right in her kennel thing, and looked out the window at me with grave disappointment, but no barking. (It's a sliding door window thing, and the kennel is there because it's bird tv sometimes, and she likes bird tv.)

Building a Syllabus

I was talking with a colleague a bit back about building a syllabus. We have quite different approaches, and it interests me to think about the relative benefits of each approach.

In fact, though, I have a slightly different approach in my writing classes than in my lit classes.

In lit classes, I hand out a pretty obsessive syllabus with all the assignments on the calendar and also detailed in the syllabus. Someone could, I suppose, walk out on the first day and just hand in great assignments and do well in the class. (It's never happened; in fact, I tend to have good attendance in my classes. It probably helps that there are small assignments due relatively often in class.)

For example, if I'm having lit students write an assignment for a given day of class, the assignment is on the syllabus/calendar. So, if they're asked to write on a passage in a text, I've put down the line number information. (It's a pain in the rear to do it ahead, but better than trying to keep on top of things and do it later.)

For writing classes, I give the due dates and journal assignments on the syllabus, but don't give detailed information about the essay assignments until we're starting to work on a given essay.

I had done these differently for a while without thinking a lot about it, but when I did think about it, I thought that first year students would get too wound up with the research assignment too early, and not focus well on what we're working on to build up to it. Maybe that's not the best approach, though? (I could hand out all the essay assignments ahead. It would take a couple hours of prep each to revise from the last time, but I do that prep at some point anyway.)

In the lit classes, most students are at least second year students, and I think it helps them to know what's coming and to see the way the course is built. I don't think most of them think that much about course building, but they can see on the first day of class when each thing is due and plan ahead, and I know some students take that seriously.


My colleague, though, gave students a broad outline, but didn't give them assignments ahead because zie makes them up as the class goes. So, the class might know there's a short essay due in a month, but not exactly when, and not what.

I also have colleagues who give out modular calendars and assignments. For example, they'll hand out a three week calendar and assignments, and do that four or five times during a term. (Their opening syllabus will include the legal stuff, and the opening week or two.)

And I've seen a colleague's syllabus that basically gives the legal stuff and then zie gives assignments daily on the board, pretty much. (That's how most of my high school classes worked, as I recall.)


What works for you? For your students?

What are the benefits or drawbacks to different approaches for you? For your students?

Does the course level (first year, undergrad, senior seminar, grad) matter?


ps. I'm almost done with my syllabus stuff for the semester! Just a few passages to look up and some thinking about other reading for my senior seminar!

Build a Better Shakespeare Site

I got a polite email the other day from one of those Shakespeare sites, one of the ones that puts up stuff about Shakespeare. The site wanted me to link to it, and offered a reciprocal link.

But I'm not interested, and I think the site needs to rethink its strategies. Here, then, are a couple of ideas I have about making a better Shakespeare site. (I have more that I'd be willing to sell to someone who's actually interested in doing a really good Shakespeare site, but these are free.)

A bit of an overview: The Shakespeare sites like this one are dot com sites, trying to join the Shakespeare industry to make some money, mostly, I'm guessing, by hosting ads on the site and getting revenue that way. They're also selling text access in the form of e-texts.

I'm happy for people to make money on Shakespeare. I make my living partly off Shakespeare, after all.

There are two audiences for this sort of site, the random person who has an interest in Shakespeare and looks something up, and the far greater population of high school and college students who are taking a Shakespeare class. That's the audience you really want to get.

But you won't get that audience from a link here because mostly the people who read here are other academics and adults who aren't all that interested in Shakespeare per se, but are interested in me as friends or because we've built some sort of relationship. Those folks aren't going to click through. Nor am I interested in being linked on your site, because students aren't going to find this blog particularly interesting or helpful.

How could a Shakespeare site use me to get a real audience? The site needs to convince me to 1) list it on my syllabus as a place that will be good for students, and (more important) 2) get other Shakespeare faculty to do the same. That will mean that our ed students will also suggest it to their eventual co-teachers and students. Not surprisingly, I actually know lots of people who teach Shakespeare, and if a site were really good, I'd tell them so. (I've adopted course texts based on advice in comments here, and on advice from faculty friends. Other faculty do the same. And I've recommended texts to other faculty folks, too.)

How do you get me to put a Shakespeare site on my syllabus or share it with other Shakespeare faculty?

1) Cite your sources. Remember when Wikipedia started and everyone said, well, sometimes it's good, but they need to tell us where they're getting the information? And then Wikipedia articles started citing sources. And lo, they're much better now.

Shakespeare instructors at all levels want their students to be aware that there are sources for the information they read on the net. Further, we want students to read information that uses sources the way we want students to use sources. That is, your site should be a model for using sources well because that would help students learn to acknowledge their sources. Please model good citation practices.

2) Part of citing sources is giving information about where you're getting your texts. Are you giving students a text edited in the 19th century? (That's been a fairly typical way of avoiding copyright issues.) Are you using F or Q as your source for Lear? And whichever you use, are you making sure that students know and can learn why you've chosen what you've chosen?

3) When you put up texts, give Act, scene, and line numbers. This is especially important for e-texts. I'm already tired of having students scroll through e-texts looking for a passage, and they haven't been around that long.

I've got other ideas, but a site that did those things well would be a site that I'd recommend to students and other faculty. I'm guessing fellow bloggers will have other suggestions for building a better Shakespeare site.

Physical Therapy is Hard

I went for my second PT appointment yesterday. At the first one, he, the physical therapist mostly measured stuff, looked at me walk and do other stuff, and so on. He gave me an assignment to soak my foot in contrast baths. So I did that. It wasn't hard, though it took almost an hour a day.

This week's assignments are hard. I need to do stretching stuff and squatting stuff (partial squats), and they're the kind of thing that's hard for me. You know you see pictures of athletes holding huge weights on their shoulders doing deep squats? That's not me. But even these partial squats with no weights are hard for me.

Of course, I like my illusion that I'm decently fit given my age and all, but doing these assignments destroys that illusion pretty quickly. Deep down, I want the therapist to say, wow, you're doing great. But if I were doing great, I wouldn't need the help of a physical therapist, of course.

Like most people, I'm guessing, I like exercise that's easy, thus the bike. Yes, biking can be VERY hard, but I'm not riding up some Col in the Alps as fast as I can. In fact, I don't usually push myself really hard biking, especially during the winter.

So now I am going to get on my bike for a bit, and then do the stretchy stuff when I'm nice and warmed up. And then go give blood.

One interesting thing about yesterday's physical therapy visit: he had me warm up on a stationary bike (as opposed to writing letters on a stationery bike, I suppose) and although it had a huge and uncomfortable tractor seat which felt tilted forward so I was always leaning, but the hand rest was high so I wasn't in anything like my usual road position, it also had a watt thingy. I've never done anything (that I remember) with a watt thingy, so I mildly amused myself by playing with my watts. And while I am betting lying to myself I could add a lot of wattage if properly positioned, even on that terrible saddle I could do just over 100 watts pretty consistently for the four minute warmup.

Remember this ad? At the beginning, Andy Schleck claims he can get 899 watts, and then Alberto Contador says he can get 900. So that puts some perspective on my little 100 watts.

Not Doing Taxes

I loaded up the tax prep program today and went on line to the NWU site to get my tax info. I've gotten the tax stuff from everyone else, pretty much (I may be missing one, still, but I haven't checked on line yet). (Have I mentioned that I really like being able to check on line for tax forms? I do.)

But not at NWU, at least not yet. The site says they'll make W2s available on the 31st.

The thing is, I was trying to get my taxes done before the semester begins because once it does, taking hours to do taxes is way more difficult. And, of course, the first thing the tax program wants is my W2 information.

I tried looking at the Dec 1 pay stub thing, but the numbers don't seem to add up correctly, and the site says NOT to do that.

So I guess I'll wait. Grrrr.

***

And what are we going to do tomorrow without wikipedia available? I'm an unaware addict, I guess.

Thank You. Plural

It's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Or at least the day our government chooses to officially recognize him and his work.

I think of Dr. King as being a sort of synecdoche of what we should be honoring, one of many people who worked hard to change law and practices in the US.

I sometimes wonder if I'd been an adult in those days, would I have had the integrity to work for change. I doubt it, alas.

Growing up on the west coast, I didn't hear a lot of discussion about the civil rights movement in my family. The racism in my family was there, but not in the ways it's visible in photos from the south. Instead, I was taught to respect everyone, but. And that "but" meant that things weren't really considered equal. There's a lot in that little word.

But I know now that there were people in our community working hard for change there, too. And I thank them.

And there are people now who are working hard for change. And I thank them.

I work a little for change, but not as hard as I should. I should work harder. Racism is in the air we breathe, but that's not an excuse to work against it.

Today's a reminder for me. Maybe for you, too.

Walk

I've got the neighbor's dog visiting for a bit, so she took me out on a walk. Yesterday we went out to the green space behind my house and walked down to the watershed area. Today we went over by the undeveloped area on the other side of the hill.

It's not so undeveloped anymore. While I was away, developers put in a roadway coming from the far side in. They clear cut for it, and it's totally different.

We walked along the uncut part for a while, and then I saw a tent, so I whistled for the dog and turned around. I don't have any objection to someone camping out there (either some kids or someone who doesn't have a warmer place to be) but I also didn't want to bother or confront someone who might think I'm some sort of threat.

Since I've been home and started putting seed out again, I've seen a lot of juncoes about. Usually they migrate through, but they seem to have stuck around this year. And I've also seen a couple of goldfinches. Even in non-mating season plumage, they're reasonably easy for a novice birder such as myself to identify, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen them here in winter before. I'm guessing they've stuck around because it's been mild so far and/or because someone else fed during the fall.

It's wonderful to walk with a dog that really enjoys snow. She's all bouncy and runs around sticking her nose deep into where deer have walked (or something else smells good). I got her tired enough that she walked back to the house (and tried to go to her house nearby) but not so tired that she didn't run when I whistled for her to come to my house instead. (I live on a really quiet street, so no worries about a dog or kids around, at least during the very visible daylight.)

InBox

I checked my email this morning and there's a polite note in there from a student wanting to know about using ebooks. I'm fine with students using ebooks in class, so long as they've got a glossary, notes, line numbers (or page numbers) and are decent editions. The one who emailed indicated that s/he'd be using a computer to read the text and bring it to class.

But here's the question: when I allow open text/open note essay exams, should I allow the computer to be used?

Yes? Sure, the student has been using it all semester and has his/her notes on there!

No? The student has access to the web and that may give an unfair advantage, or worse, the student may plagiarize and it would be a pain in the rear to find plagiarism on a hand written exam. Worse, if the student wanted to type his/her exam, that would seem to invite cutting and pasting.

***

One of the other things in my inbox came from our teaching center place offering us a class in using something called "Let Me Learn." I don't know what that is, but it sounds opposed to what I usually use, which are books labeled clearly "You are NOT allowed to learn!"

I wonder if the makers have any idea of the different meanings of "let"?

Edited to add: In my effort not to be a closed-minded jerk, I went and found the web site and looked around. And I went through their introductory powerpoint, complete with floaty words (you know, words floating onto the screen) and appearing pictures (the ones that appear in a windmill pattern or whatever).

If someone makes a craptastic powerpoint, do I trust them to teach anything in a useful way? Nope, alas, I don't. You?

Lunch Out?

I'm getting back in touch with my committee and departmental duties for the semester coming, and it looks like we're going to have a number of job candidates on campus in the first few weeks of the semester, and that means we're going to need to feed them.

We usually do a sign up thing for people to have lunch or dinner with candidates. One person is signed on as host. That person pays for the candidate's meal and hir own and then gets reimbursed by the department. Everyone else pays hir own way. And that gets expensive, especially if we're looking at two meals out a week for a couple of weeks. (I do eat out, but not usually twice a week; I almost always take my lunch to work. And when I eat out, it's likely to be with friends, so it's fun, not work.)

We haven't gotten a raise in about 8 years but we've had pay lowered in various ways, so I'm not feeling at all like I owe the state money eating out. (I'm not living high on the hog, so it's not like I won't make my mortgage payment if I pay to go out, but I've cut back in other ways.)

On the other hand, it's important to get to know candidates well enough to put in a word (though I'm often out of step with my department). Hiring new people is hugely important.

Mostly I just want to vent right now, because complaining about this to the chair or anyone else wouldn't be really productive. You're IT!

One Foot, Two Foot, Red Foot, Blue Foot

I went to the physical therapist yesterday for my appointment, and it seemed good. I felt like an idiot since the foot isn't hurting lately and such, but he looked and had me walk and measured and said that one foot is slightly swollen, and that the ankle has less movement than the other. And then there's balance stuff.

And he didn't seem to think I was an idiot or liar for wanting to bike or ski or run (if only we get more snow for skiing!). And he said I could do what I wanted for activity.

This week, the goal is to try to reduce the swelling, so he's having me do twice a day foot bath things. First I put the foot (well, I put both feet, because one is somehow more awkward) in a hot water bath for 3 minutes, and then I put it (them) in a cold water bath for a minute, and I repeat that for 20 or so minutes.

I couldn't tell it was swollen before, so I doubt I'll be able to see if it's less swollen. But can I say, that putting your foot in hot water right after cold is not fun, nor is putting your foot in cold water right after hot a real pleasure, though either by itself would be fine. And either is fine once the feet are "used" to it.

So now I've pedaled the bike inside for 40 minutes (watching The Tudors season 3, because that was what they had at the library, and I figure I'm not going to be too confused by the basic action even if I pick up during Jane Seymore's time), and now I'm off to soak my feet.

Help, Iarbas!

There's a character in Marlow's Dido, Queen of Carthage who's name is written Iarbas.

I'm hoping for help with pronunciation.

Wikipedia suggests from other sources "Hiarbas" as another spelling. So how would you say that?

Hee-arbas

High-arbas

Har-bas

or

Yarbas?

(Before I looked up on the wikipedia thing, I was even considering the i for j substitution and wondering about Jarbas, which sounds too unfortunately like a certain Star Wars character.)

Home!

Onofre visited the redwoods for the first time! And now I'm home safely, and getting back to being home.

Paradox

When I was growing up, and even now, my Mom would say that the thing she most couldn't stand was lying. She hated lying, and indeed, if she caught me out in a lie, I got punished for sure.

Now, there's a man here, and there's a story she LOVES about him. It has to do with making people think that he has cancer, though he doesn't, and thus things are done which convenience him greatly and inconvenience 100+ other people somewhat.

My Mom thinks his doing this is witty and wonderful, and doesn't seem to connect it at all to the lying she hates.

It's not like this is a story of some poor guy sticking it to "the man" because this guy is/was way more privileged than most.

I don't get it.

Good to Be There

Last year, I came out for an aunt's funeral. And this year, an uncle's partner has died, so I went with my Mom to the memorial. It was beautifully done, but very sad, as you'd expect.

I saw one of my cousins whom I haven't seen for years, yes years. I didn't recognize him at first, but then, he has his father's eyes, except different. My cousin has such sad eyes in some way I can't quite explain.

I wish I were around more to be able to just see and talk to my cousins more casually. I usually see them under sort of stressful or rushed circumstances, with lots of people around.

I also had lunch the other day with another cousin, one I got to know again last year at our aunt's service; we've gotten together several times now, and talked on the phone and it's been more than lovely getting to know him as adults.

Anyway, sad as it was, I was glad to be there today to give my uncle a bit of support. And I was glad to see so many other family members there, too.

We had a bit of a drive today, and I was reminded of how easy it can be to tell directions around here because you can see mountains and know which way they run. I never know that in the Northwoods.

Flyover Country is Layover Country

I'm taking a shuttle to another city to fly out to visit my Mom for a couple days.

I'm semi-cranky about it. I feel like I just got home from the UK, and then went to my brother's, and came home and now I'm heading out again. I think people who travel a lot must get better at it than I am, because all I want to do right now is hang out in my area, visit friends, and get some work done.

But it will also be good to visit my Mom and see old college friends and some family folks.

Taking the shuttle means I have to leave at 1:45 for a 5:15 flight. That flight at least leaves from a city with more than one flight a day to near where my Mom lives. Unfortunately, on the way back, there seemed to be no way to avoid a layover. So I'll leave at about noon and with the layover and the shuttle schedule, make it back home after 1am, if all goes well.

I hate the layover stuff.

When I interviewed for this job, I was living in a tiny town in the midwest. They said to make arrangements and let them know the flight schedule and stuff. Here's how it would have looked, if I recall correctly:

1) Drive an hour to a small city.
2) Fly from small city to big city.
3) Fly from big city to less big city.
4) Shuttle or fly from less big city to here.

Given that you have to give about an hour for security and stuff before you fly somewhere, it really adds up. So I looked at the roads, and it was a fairly straight shot on state roads, so I said I wanted to drive up. It saved the state a LOT of money (they reimbursed me for gas and mileage) and actually saved me several hours. And the hours I spent driving were FAR more pleasant than the same time would have been flying.

Unfortunately, it's a lot longer drive out to the coast.

Does it seem like there are fewer flights lately? I used to be able to get direct flights from the less big city to either of the airports close to my Mom (there's a third, actually, but it's less convenient).

Small Downer

I wrote a while back about applying for a summer job on campus advising incoming students; today I got the word that I didn't get chosen. As I had just opened and read it, standing in the department office, my chair walked by and expressed her disappointment for me. It's nice to be supported, but I am disappointed for myself. I'll get over it. (I have to admit to fantasizing a bit about quitting my job the day before classes start. I wonder what would happen to my retirement account? Would the state hold onto it, or would they pay it out into an IRA of some sort, or would they pay out when I am really old enough to retire?)

A friend of mine who's teaching a mid-winter course got told today (the first day of classes) that since some students had dropped, the university is paying her a lot less money. She should have the opportunity then to say that she's not teaching the class, right? Because she signed up to teach it based on a given pay, and they're not paying her that, so she should have some recourse to say she's not willing to work for less. (That would put the students in a bind, of course.)

My moral for the new semester has dropped by 40 points.

Begin the Biking Year!

My bike's odometer (on the computer) is now at 7703.7 miles.

My goal for the year is to hit 9000 on the computer.

Last year I rode 460 miles. (I just looked at the journal thing, and I didn't ride at all in January or February. But as I recall, I did go skiing a fair bit. And I ran some. And I spent a lot of time walking around the UK! It's all good!)

It looks like my biggest year was 2009 with 2380 miles.

2011: 460 miles
2010: 1020 miles
2009: 2380 miles
2008: 1425 miles
2007: 2011 miles* (There may have been more miles, before I started using the bike journal thingy, but I seem to have started using it in mid-May, so probably not tons of miles.)

Bike journal total: 7296