The Illusion of Shallowness

More on my month long absence later; suffice to say that I've been distracted. But I did pop my head up just long enough to respond to Sisyphus's post on anthologies. And in doing so, got into a familiar rhetorical spot: the one where I argue for a larger awareness of students' priorities, only to be told that others' refuse to coddle students. I'll say here that I don't know Dr. Koshary, and that she (oh god, I hope it's a she. like I said, I don't know him/her well enough to determine that) wasn't rude, abusive, or anything even resembling that. This post, then, is really not about her response, but rather the logic that underpins responses like that one.

One of the occupational hazards of teaching newer stuff, and using a lot of media (for lack of hazy identity concealing specifics), is that a common response to my classes and course content is "oh, the students must love that [eye roll]." It's a two-fer, really. Other faculty members assume A) that students immediately love the stuff that I'm teaching, and so automatically do the work and B) that there's no little to no thinking involved in doing the work. Unlike, for instance, the content of their courses, which students dislike initially, but has real relevance to the field/culture/canon, etc. On good days, this is infuriating, and on bad ones, it's depressing. Because here's the reality of what happens in my classroom: perhaps 2/3 of the students are really down with watching episodes of Sex in the City. But it's taken me years to figure out how to maneuver them through an analysis of the issues of race and class that come up in those episodes, and then to assess their own viewing practices, expectations, and see themselves as part of a larger target audience that shares and reproduces certain values. Is it the Miller's Tale? No. Is it an important set of critical thinking practices that they might use in their later lives? I like to think so. Is it easy? No. It's some of the most frustrating and difficult teaching that I do. Teaching theory is WAY easier (for me) than asking someone to critique and analyze her own predilections.

I suspect, however, that the dismissive response to the content of my courses is exacerbated by my particular pedagogical philosophy---and herein lies the logic that exists in responses like Dr. Koshary's. My take on students is this: it's helpful for me to remember that they have a number of different, competing priorities, and sometimes my class is not at the top of the list. It's not helpful because I operate with an "anything goes, it's okay with me if you don't do the work, feel free to come to class late and unprepared, have multiple absences, don't think hard" protocol. It's helpful because I don't get offended and pissed off when these things happen. They happen, there are consequences, and it all feels to me like students are making choices (consciously or unconsciously) that will determine how they move forward---in my class and in others'.

In Sisyphus's post, I linked this notion to that of her actual question, which was about course content, and perhaps that's why it all went south. But my other guiding pedagogical philosophy is this: it's okay--perhaps even advisable--to meet students where they are. Do I want all of my students to be able to read and understand complex Modernist novels or French feminist gender theory? Sure. That doesn't mean that I teach it to my first year students. As I think back over my last class of fyers, I can think of maybe two in the group who would have been able to get something out of, say, Frederic Jameson. But I would have to emphasize the "something" in that sentence. I'm not opposed to giving students content that's above their heads; but I find that it's a frustrating experience for me and them if they can't get any kind of handhold at all on the reading. What's the point of that? To show them that they're stupid? That they're bad readers? The majority of my students describe themselves this way on the first day of class---I don't have a significant need to prove it to them. They have four years to develop the skills they'll need to read and understand the kinds of work that specialists in their chosen fields read. And I hope to be part of that learning curve as they accumulate those skills.

So here's the connection that has always baffled me, although I wouldn't have thought about it in this way if I hadn't been trying so hard to make the connection clear in my own head: why is it that many of us instantaneously interpret "compassion" as "coddling"? Are there so few pedagogical models of "compassion" + "challenging"=learning that we're unable to conceptualize that idea?

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

So, before I can even get to something vaguely substantive, can I just say that it's mothercussing HOT up in here?! It's not even 8 a.m., and it's 84 degrees and humid. In the house. Yagh. And this is totally not helping the small but virulent case of poison ivy blisters that I managed to acquire sometime last weekend. Balls. The only thing stopping me from pouring concrete over the entire yard so as never to have to maintain it would be the fact that it would really increase the heat factor. And thus, we've come full circle.

But while I've self-pityingly, with morbid fascination, watching beads of sweat form and roll down my leg while I'm indoors, sitting perfectly still, exerting as little energy as possible, I've also been trying to revise and resubmit this co-authored article that I should have finished last summer. While I was selling our house. And buying a new one. And pissing and moaning about that.

There are several things that are not helping with the r&r (and may I just say, for the record, that there is a brutal irony in the fact that this kind of "r&r" is so antithetical to the other kind of "r&r" which is what I should be doing in the height of the summer?!! ).

• we waited, like assholes, to go back to this article, and thus have to account for all relevant research that's been published since the first time we sent it out, up to and including a major revision of a primary piece that we're critiquing. Crapballs.
• in the course of examining said new research, I've pulled a couple of pieces from the journal that we're revising for. And while the articles are interesting (I guess), they're not world-rocking. There's nothing that I've read thus far that makes me sit up and say: "gee, I never thought of that!! This is totally going to change the way I think about x!"
• the above lack-of-revelation makes me wonder why we're working so damn hard on this revision.
• and then I realize that it's because my writing partner is an evil demon-sprite of revision integrity, in which she believes that anything worth rewriting is worth rewriting right, and thus we've torn this sucker down to it's pegs and started over with the detritus.
• I know that this should make me feel all high and mighty, but instead I keep wondering if we couldn't just make exactly the changes suggested by the editors and be done with the whole thing. A month ago. When we go back in our DeLorean time machine.
• I'm mighty suspicious of journal articles and scholarly publishing in general right now, and that attitude is not making me want to toe the line about academic discourse and formatting, all of which is tedious and necessary for this revision.

Whew. The real biter, however, and the inspiration for the title of this post, is that it's only in these situations when I really realize what it is that I'm asking students to do when they write and revise. Last week, I sat down with a book and two articles that I knew needed to be integrated into the draft of the article. But where did they go? Did I need specific quotes, or did I need to gloss the argument of the pieces and use that to frame my points? In the article that is most closely related to my argument, do I need to dismantle the author's conclusions point by point, or is it enough to explain in a few lines the ways that our studies diverge?

This week, I ran through all of the dreck rough material we pounded out trying to integrate this stuff, and found myself thinking: "good Christ, is there any consistent idea that holds this paragraph together? What is it's relationship to the rest of the section? Why don't we analyze this quote here? This idea is good, but really tangential to the point we're trying to make..."

Sound familiar? So was the feeling of frustration/rage that built up. Only this time, it was aimed at me and my writing partner, not at a 20 year old budding novelist. Hi! My name is kettle---did you have something you wanted to call me?

God willin' and the crick don't rise, we'll send this sucker out by the end of the week, and then hopefully I'll never have to think about it again. But I hope that I'll have some sympathy for my students when I blithely collect the drafts of their papers in the fall.

Write to Teach?

You know, when I gripe about faculty at Askesis U. who haven't picked up a book in their field in 20 years, or who want to base their promotion to full professor on the article that they published 16 years ago in order to be promoted to associate, it's grounded on the fuzzy idea that in order to be an effective faculty member, you have to be in touch with how your field has evolved, and with the shifts in academic thought in general. Over the past year, however, I'm beginning to see a different compulsion for faculty research and publication: compassion.

I've had two upper-division classes this year, both of which require a big ol' research paper. And because I've been working closely on a number of projects with Yogini (writing teacher extraordinaire), I've been spending a lot of time scaffolding assignments that help the students get to the final product. Let me say what we already know: the big research paper? Intimidating. Scary. A Project with no Clear System of Approach. The Measure of Your Worth as a Major and perhaps as a Human. I don't want to put words in my students' mouths, but when I joke around with them about the paper, these are the ones that I use. I also find myself saying, over and over again: "Don't Panic." and "Come see me." and "let's think about how to adjust the assignment to fit you, rather than adjusting you to the assignment."

And where does all of this warm fuzziness come from, when we have plenty of evidence that I'm often a cold hard bitch of a grader? (True confessions: I called myself "a hag for close reading" in class yesterday.)

As any reader of this blog knows, I am not a confident or effortless writer. Pick any month from the archive and you'll see my predictable reaction to any writing task, which includes the words "paralysis," "self-flagellation," "procrastination," "self-doubt," etc. etc. Last week, a student showed up for her conference in a hairshirt---all, "my problem with research is that I have to read everything or else I'm not really true to the ideas," and "I've got so much information I don't know what to do with it," and "I have all of this stuff to say that I can't get it out."

When I said the word "paralysis" to her, she looked at me like I had just explained her whole life.

If the injunction to doctors is "physician, heal thyself," for academics it might be "professor, become your student." I certainly don't want to project my difficulties onto my students, but I see their struggles in a whole new light when they so closely mirror my own. Maybe somewhere out there, there's a professor who has no problems writing---her shit just writes itself. But for the rest of us, it's a useful reminder that we may have some significant, personal insight into the question "why can't she just write the paper?"

Of course, we can only have that insight if we've struggled, ourselves, with the difficulties of argument, of organization, of projected expectations of how our peers will judge our work. All of a sudden, the necessity of an actively researching faculty at a teaching institution is not just to mimic the expectations set by R1 schools; it becomes a pedagogical exigency. To really teach students to write, you have to write too. (And then you have to be able to see that you're not all that far away from your students, I suppose, but that's another post entirely.)

Danger: Rage Level Rising

In general, it would be a lie say that I'm not an angry person. I may not be some kind of Sam Kinison figure (AHHHHHH!!!), but I'm not exactly all sweetness and light. I like to think that I've moved to address this character flaw by somehow making my anger at the world both conversational ("Hey, aren't you mad about x?") and humorous (picture hands flailing here. It's a visual thing.). This week however---and yes, I realize that it's only Monday---seems to be the moment at which I can make issues neither social nor funny.

Issue #1: the not-new but consistently unbelievable situation in which people who work together have no respect for each others' disciplines, even as they profit from the involvement of those same people. Somewhere down deep, my code of ethics simply requires that I have a baseline (no matter how low) for a modicum of belief that my colleagues do something important. Even if it's not important to me, per se, it's important. That seems like a given, right? But this week, I got an earful from a school colleague who talked to a member of the granny mafia, and she gave him an earful about how useless--nay, detrimental!--mine and Yogini's research and teaching foci are to the field. Meanwhile, our department rolls out a new concentration in said field, and when the administration asks: "what's new and exciting in your department?" my colleague brings up this minor every chance she gets. Damn! That's cold as ice!

Issue #2: The students in my media class are moving into their final group projects. For the past 12 weeks, we've been viewing, discussing and writing about the conventions of a genre, and discussing what makes that genre work. Each week, there is a specific individual assignment wherein the students analyze the relationship between the viewing and the ideological impact of the text. As they design their final projects, then, we've been talking a lot about the ideological message they want their film to put forward. Now, after two conferences, I have a group that is simply making an incredibly homophobic project. Under the guise of "social critique." If it's social critique, then I'm going to have to go back and re-examine Amos and Andy. They insist that it won't come across that way when they actually make it. Sigh. [Senor Fluff's solution is to suggest to the group that it's reflective of their own deepest fantasies. Tempting...]

Issue #3: I've been having a long-standing conversation with a student about her research paper. First she couldn't come up with a topic; then she couldn't arrive at a text. Throughout, I encouraged her to come and meet with me. No dice. After several concerned emails and draft comments in which I essentially wrote three sample arguments based on her meandering thoughts collected from informal writing over the course of the semester, she locates a school of critical thought and a primary text. But we're not out of the woods yet! Multiple emails and questions about sources. The school of thought that she's interested in (we'll call it shmeader shmesponse) has a 30 year history, give or take. Yet she can't seem to find any sources on it. Or on gender criticism. Or on the author of the text. I just read another draft of her paper, which gives me six pages of her own ideas of what shmeader shmesponse is, with absolutely no reference to the critics or their theories. Because she still can't find sources---"do you have any more ideas for search terms?" The good news is that this is the capstone course, so the fact that she's so lost means that she's learned nothing in the program, and that she'll soon cycle out of it. Except that she's registered for another of my classes in the spring. Wherein I had planned to recycle a lot of material from this course.

God help me if there is some sort of Hegelian synthesis at work here. I prefer to think that they are isolated and passing incidents (except for the first, which is consistent, long-term, and unsurprising). But man, if someone has a ray of hope to shine on my swirling pit of rage, bring it the fuck on.

Student Autonomy?

Today, I stole one of my previous colleague's excellent ideas: I took my seminar students on a field trip to the research library.

In a million years, it never would have occurred to me to do this. As much as I want to see my students for the people they are, I can't help but fall back, sometimes, on assuming what they will or can do---because I did it when I was their age. As an undergrad, I happily drove all over hell and gone to various bookstores and libraries to get what I wanted. But students at Askesis, I have to remind myself, are different. Despite the fact that Big Research U. is 5 minutes up the road, many have never been, and are intimidated by the entire process of navigating the campus, and then actually using the library once they get there. As we rode back on the bus, there were a number of comments like: "We've been moving for 5 minutes and we're not even off the campus yet!" and "The most impressive thing is that they have a Wendy's on campus." :)

One of the things that I loved about the trip was the way that they rather effortlessly shared their knowledge with one another. C. knows the bus system because she uses it all the time, and so she made sure we got on the right one. T., who drove there on her own so she could go straight to work afterwards, got there before the rest of us, and so she was all too happy to explain how we needed guest log-ins for the catalog, and how the reference librarians could help us. M and L and K found that their books were in similar sections, and so I saw them roaming the stacks in packs.

One of the refrains that's emerging in this course is one that always takes me by surprise: "I've never gotten to choose what I wanted to write a paper on before."

?!!!

On the one hand, I can't imagine that that's true. But maybe? It's certainly the case that some of my colleagues are dictatorial about student research. [My favorite is the one that requires students to read all of the course material BEFORE the class begins, and to choose a paper topic in the first week.] When pressed on the point, the students adjust their statement: "Well, I could choose between some options, but not just anything I wanted." [For the record, they do have specific parameters in my class. It's just that they're based on genre, not on time period.]

I've been turning that refrain around and around in my head all afternoon. Because, really, what's the frickin' POINT of being an English major if you can't write about what you want?! Honestly, if you're going to have to write what someone tells you to write, then you may as well be a business major. And yet, as I think about their experience navigating Big Research U., I have to revise my views a bit. Writing what you want is a lot like going up the road to Big Research U. for the first time. You don't know what you're doing, it's confusing, you have to constantly ask people what to do. You have to be willing to wander, and to live in the wandering for awhile, until you begin to make your way toward the knowledge you came there for. As many of my students said, before we went: "I need someone to hold my hand, or else I won't go."

It's certainly true that some of them are still in the wandering stage. Perhaps more realistically, some are in the I've-been-lost-in-the-wild-for-weeks-and-I'm-hungry-and-tired-and-panicked wandering stage. And if I'd been more dictatorial, they'd be further along in their research and in their drafts by now. But to listen to them work through ideas that are really their own, for what they perceive as the first time, feels well worth the price of progress.

If I'm to take my own metaphor seriously here (that's the one in which library visit=independent research/writing process. You got that, right?), then I would need to think carefully about how to set up more intellectual "field trips," in which they can get a buddy and try something new and scary together. Where they figure out which person knows the bus system, which person knows the campus, and which knows how to work with the librarians, and pool that collective knowledge to get to their own individual goals.

Somewhere in the pedagogical landscape, there is application of the perfect amount of handholding that gets students to their own work. Until I figure that out, I highly recommend the field trip. Pack a lunch, and keep your hands and arms inside the bus at all times.

Nuggets of Student Wisdom

Oh, this is a list that can go on forever, since I'm reading draft after draft after draft of papers. However, I'll just share two that came up in class this past week:

1) Kfluff: "So what do you make of this description of character? What would it mean to be a 'B+ student of life'? What do you associate with B+'s?"
Student: "Average. A B+ is average."
[sound of jaw hitting floor as many students nod in agreement.]

2) Kfluff: "So what are you finding in the questionnaires you've distributed about that book?"
Student: "Well, everyone loves it. Lots of middle-school girls love it, but I also found a blog by a woman who loves it. And she's a 31 year old middle-aged woman."
[sound of now-bruised jaw hitting floor.]

In other news, however, two of my seminar students did a dramatic reading of the climactic scene from a novel we read for class. The dirty novel. The one I was totally worried about teaching, that three of them are now writing their research papers on. I'm so delighted and charmed by the idea that they're so engaged by the book that they're still thinking about it, and wanting to transmit it to others. And I imagine that it's the first departmental event at which the world "dildo" was used multiple times. Go me.

Ever Have One of These?

I just finished up reading a novel with my seniors---one that they didn't particularly like. So I gave them my speech about it: "look, it's a novel about the elision of the desire and sexuality of young women. It's about how they get others' desires projected on to them, and how any number of people then benefit from those projections. In a moment at which we're fascinated and horrified by Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus, I think this novel is telling us something important about how and why those young women behave the way that they do, and why we care so much about them." At which point, one of the two young men in my class responded: "but it just doesn't have anything important to say."

Sigh.

I'm reluctant to make my students into archetypes, because I really run the risk of erasing their personalities (see above critique of novel). And yet, it occurs to me that this young man fits neatly into a category that I've encountered a number of times at Askesis. I'd say that the defining features are as follows:

• significant interest in high culture male authors (Joyce, Pound, etc.)
• significant interest and desire to imitate 60's era male authors (Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, etc.)
• inflated sense of self and abilities
• deeply convinced that his own writing---both creative and analytic---is excellent
• rejects criticism and suggestions for revision
• disdain for/ignores female classmates
• girl/boyfriendless

Do you all get this type? In addition to the specific student quoted above, I've had at least 4-5 of these in the last few years (admittedly, many of them were grouped together in a 2-3 year span). Is this just a new phenomenon, or have I not been paying attention?

I'm tempted to link the maintenance of these boys' positions to the rarefied atmosphere that they inhabit at Askesis. Because the population of the college is about 70% female, they find themselves in a strange position. On the one hand, they're vastly outnumbered, particularly in literature classes. It's not unusual at all for them to be the only male in a classroom of females. (Even in my course this semester, the dude is one of two, and the other male student is out. Really out. "Explained the mechanics of anal sex to the class" out.) And the young women have little to no compunction about discussing their own oppression vis-a-vis the media, or the ways that "guys are," etc. I assume that that holds true across courses as well, since we have a surfeit of female professors in my department, and in others throughout the college.

At the same time, the young women tell me that these young men also occupy a particularly privileged place in the romantic economy. They are vastly outnumbered, true, but that sets them up to be fought over by the young women. According to my graduated girl-moles, guys who would be mediocre in a different pond end up being pretty big fish at Askesis.

So is it this odd power dynamic inspired by their minority position that creates so many of these vexed young men? I'm often struck by the consistency of their literary tastes as well. Is there a handbook somewhere that they're all getting on the sly--the "How To Be an Ass and Alienate Women" Anthology (coming from Bedford in 2009!)?

And last but not least---why do they keep ending up in my courses?!! It's definitely the case that I teach the new stuff, but there are an up-and-coming bunch of young manly men profs in my department. Are they going to them? And do they treat them the same way? Because, ironically, this is what I get from the group. They're just on this side of sycophantic. Not in an obvious way (I don't think), but they like to sit near me in class (which allows them to participate by ignoring the other people in the room); come to my office hours; mention books in class that no one else has read. In general, I think there's a whole predictable bag of tricks that have the desired effect of publicly intimating/performing a camaraderie with me that doesn't exist, but that the other students clearly notice. The irony, of course, is not lost on me: the very girls that they're ignoring and looking down on are the ones that I was, 15 years ago. I'm fascinated by their ability to ignore that connection.

Over time, I've found that my most effective strategy is to ignore them; to constantly attach their ideas and comments to those of the young women in the class; to gently poke fun at their ridiculous comments (see above). I imagine that it's better to refuse to take them seriously than it is to entertain their positions like they're valid.

Notes from the First Week; Tabulation Edition

On Teaching

• Scheduled for new, snazzy office computer (+3)
• Said computer does not arrive until halfway through the first day of classes (-2)
• When computer arrives and is set up, it doesn't print (-2)
• Did not finish syllabi until hour before individual classes began (-5)
• Students in first class notice not in the least (+3)
• Students in first class, while a bit reticent to speak, have a collective sense of humor and exhibit ability to engage in something they nothing about (+3)
• Students in second class are a mixed-bag, consisting of various majors with widely-divergent skill sets and expectations (-2)
• Students in second class also willing to go with me, and have good things to contribute to discussion on first day (+3)
• Teaching a second time makes me realize that I know what I want to say and pertinent concepts to signal to them (+5)
• Having filed all handouts and originals from said class, it didn't matter that I couldn't locate the book that I would have needed to photocopy (+5)

On Extracurriculars

• PR "loses email" with details about flyers for pedagogy series, for the second time in two years (-3)
• PR pulls it out of their collective asses, providing flyers in time to hand out (+4)
• Print shop unable to print said flyers (-2)
• Colleagues back out of first session of series, due to emergency surgery (-2)
• Different colleague, often the crankiest one ever, agrees to fill in (+3)
• In turn, cranky colleague twists arm to guilt me into serving as faculty rep for athletic team. Me. (0)
• thought there was a meeting scheduled on Wednesday, only to discover that there wasn't, and thus was done at 2:30 in afternoon (+7)
• 2 hour department meeting on first day of classes, in which granny mafia asserts its dominance by a) interrupting and dismissing new colleague 5-8 times b) trying to pressure me into taking on the KRAZY grad student c) whinging on d) ignoring the result of a hard-won battle from last semester because it didn't like the results (-20)
• consistent air of rebellion and barely-hidden mocking amongst members of department during meeting (+5)
• bringing itouch to meetings, so that everything is one step removed (+5)
• saying no to KRAZY grad student (+3)
• New colleague is already thinking up ways to confuse/annoy granny mafia, including but not limited to the singing of Billy Idol songs (+5)
• "volunteered" to be on search committee, which will have 300 applications (-3), one of which from an internal candidate (-7), includes a number of sane people (+3), and will involve a trip to San Francisco (+7)
• delightful happy hour with colleagues, in which everyone played nice (+5)

Okay, I'm not going to bother to add all of that up. Just from a quick scan, it's clear where the major suckfest of my week comes from, but it's also clear that there are any number of things that ameliorate its effect, somewhat. In true procrastinatory form, I put off finishing syllabi and prepping for class because I wasn't feeling it; for the first time in a long time, I had no jolt of excitement about getting back in the classroom. That lasted through my first classes; I was rough around the edges, babbling, etc. But once they had read a bit, things started to change. I'm utterly amused by some of my students already, and the ways in which they are reluctant to engage with some of the materials is an engaging conundrum for me too. So, yay teaching.

There are a number of zeppelins on the horizon: the search committee; the departmental situation; new administrator; tenure file; request for sabbatical; and the ever-present "who am I? What do I want to be when I grow up?" trauma, but there's no use rushing it. Plenty of things to blow up in their own time.

I'd say that as first weeks go, I came out slightly ahead, and I'd like to maintain that lead for as long as I can. Hello, labor day!

Let the Countdown Begin

Yup, once the first day is over, you can officially begin the countdown. Seven more days of summer school! Only seven!!

As much as I'm not relishing the experience of getting up and going in to school tomorrow to teach, and then doing the same thing the day after, and then the day after that (repeat four more times), there is something significantly different in the summer-school vibe. I don't know how to explain it. I'm in the classroom; I'm teaching. I'm doing the dance. But I'm not exhausted at the end, I'm not gritting my teeth through some classroom discussions. [I was ravenous by the end of class, but I suppose that's to be expected.]

We'll see how this goes as I continue on, but for right now, it could definitely be worse. And why is that? A number of reasons, heretofore described as the rules governing "if you're going to teach summer school, do it like this."
Rule #1: Teach something you know.
Rule #2: Teach something you've taught before.
Rule #3: Carefully consider what can be taught in a shortened period. For instance, I wouldn't be teaching a class on the 19th C. novel right now. Not that I would be teaching that anyway (see rules 1 and 2).
Rule #4: Be realistic about what the students can absorb and how. For instance, my class by rights should meet 5-6 hours a day. How many of us could discuss or write about something for 6 hours straight? I moved part of this class online, and that has made a world of difference, both for the students and for me.
Rule #5: If possible, limit the number of students. Last summer, I taught the class with 12 students. This summer, it's 7. That's largely due to a registrar error, but boy, 5 fewer students is 5 fewer chances of random meltdowns. (Of course, a student did tell me this morning that she might have to leave class because her boyfriend was attending a bail hearing. !!)

What else makes summer school teaching less painful?

Land Speed Record

If you heard a sonic boom yesterday at about 5, it was me and my turbo grading pen. Just in time to meet my students for their last class, I graded 16 reflective papers, four group projects, and 4 extra credit response papers. [For the record, I'm usually averse to e.c.; in this case, there were bizarre extenuating circumstances.]

I do not recommend this kind of binge grading to anyone. It melts your brain, and brings on carpal tunnel symptoms, and has the tendency to inspire rage both murderous and suicidal. There is also no margin for error. If there had been any suspicion of plagiarism, for example, I would have been hosed---no time to start googling random passages here, the clock is ticking!

But it is a sweet, sweet thing to hand back a stack of papers to students, complete with their final grades. There is, of course, always the last minute hail mary pass, the tearing eyes, the whining. But---and this is a huge but (like mine is, now, if the giant ass groove on my couch from whence the grading marathon took place is any indication), once that happens, it's generally over. As in, I get very few---like two per semester, if that---emails or phone calls disputing the final grade. It doesn't hurt that I also hand out a spreadsheet to them with every single grade they've received over the course of the semester, including daily participation. [For that, I thank a little program called Micrograde, and Lee, who introduced me to it after she moved away and no longer programmed my Excel spreadsheet formulas for me.] There was a moment at which I was afraid that giving students the numbers would give them room to negotiate every single point (but I made THREE comments that day, not TWO!), but I've found that for the most part, they are either awed by the sheer volume of numbers, or else by the fact that I quantify everything. It's a bizarre thing: I'm not one for quantification, but it seems to calm student fears that everything is arbitrary. On some level, I think that the managing the psychology of student teacher power dynamics is more important than the grade itself, for all that we criticize students about their focus on grades.

I originally intended this as the celebratory post of "I'm mostly done!" [Mostly, because of course there are stragglers, and random tasks. Like departmental assessment of seniors. F*&$.] Instead, it's turned into a post on how I manage to reduce the post-class grade panic and the unsavory interactions that usually accompany it. I think I'd account for the slippage in this way: we're not really done until the students accept their grades. And thus, sometimes, grading is not the end.

Good luck to all! The end is in sight!

NASCAR? Nobel.

Oh, I wish there were a way to let you all be flies on the wall in my classroom. Although that would be kind of gross, and a bit too much like The Exorcist. But oh, to have someone witness this exchange (presented to you in MadLibs form, to protect the ignorant):

Fluff: Next week, we'll be starting [major Amerian novel]. The reason we're reading [major American novel] is because it's the [ethnic group] equivalent of [other major American novel.] In many ways, [author] is the [ethnic group] equivalent of [monumental author].

Student: [monumental author]?

Fluff: Yeah, [monumental author].

silence.

Student: [monumental author]? Is he a NASCAR driver?

Fluff: Is he a NASCAR driver?! SHE'S arguably one of the most important twentieth century American writers! Her [famous novel] was voted by the New York Times the best book of the twentieth century?!

silence.

Fluff: [monumental author's first book]? [monumental author's second book]? Pulitzer Prize winner? Nobel Prize winner? OPRAH?!!

Student: We don't read.

Look, folks. I'm usually not one to bust on the kids for their lack of cultural capital. In their defense, they're taking this class to fulfill gen ed requirements, so all of them are math, or science, or art, or education majors. But holy crap on a cracker!! Is [monumental American author] a NASCAR driver?!! Take me now, Jeebus! I'm comin' home!

The saving grace of this incident is that my department chair is thankfully coming next week to observe my class. She would have shit a pile of bricks if she'd been in the room for this one. Doubtless, my students will bring it up, along with my recent mini-lectures on Spam [the ways that food reveals historical and economic materialities] and Rock of Love [who can forget the words to the national anthem and not be punished for it].

Holding Back the Snark

I've been, as the title says, Holding Back the Snark, as sung to the tune of Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years." I've gotten about this far in rewriting the lyrics:

Holding back the snark
Thinking that it's better in the long run
But what I'd rather do
Is speak it awfully slow for you

But I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on

The inspiration for such a masterpiece of revision? Student emails, of course! I actually have quite delightful classes this semester, including a brand new film class that is a challenging mix of senior English majors who are all about the theoretically-informed critique of films, and students taking it as an elective who want to talk about their love for particular actors. I've committed to having them do weekly writing in this class---short papers in which they apply the secondary work we're reading (either an article about the genre, about the time period, or a film textbook) to a very specific element in the film, and move toward a larger argument about effect and ideology. No, it's not easy, but that's why we practice, eh? Attached to the syllabus is a description of the assignment that students can follow. This puts me in the unenviable position of reading and commenting on 20 of these a week, but there's nothing like weekly writing to embed some habits of mind (and, sadly, make students take a film class seriously).

So my student R. is a well-meaning and dedicated student. She's an adult who's got kids, and she's taken film classes before at the local community college. So, three weeks in, she writes me to tell me she's concerned about her grades on these papers (on which she was receiving B's, for the record), and asked me to clarify what I want. Right---on TOP of the comments that I give you each week? Okay, so I construct a sample for her---a "this is what I would do if I were going to write it, but this is only one of many models" type thing. Since it took me about 45 minutes to do that, I figured I should post it for the entire class so that everyone could see it, effectuating the creation of a course website to do this on, but whatever.

Okay, so this week, after having posted the example. Virtually all of the papers are better, and start moving toward the kind of analysis I want. They're not perfect, but they're in the ballpark (and not largely made up of "gee, I saw this movie when I was 14 and my sister and I thought that Andrew McCarthy was the hottest thing. And then we went to the mall and bought glitter socks. But back to the movie..."). Of course, virtually all of them are on the same topic as the example that I posted, but they all worked through it in their own way. So, I'm not complaining. And, like those of her peers, R's paper is better too---she got an 87.

Her email to me, sent the day after class, reports that she's disappointed and wants to know if I have any suggestions, because she thought she was doing what I asked.

And here's where I have to start singing my little song. Because seriously----other than write it for her, what else can I do? How do I respond to that email without saying, "Well, R., did I perhaps say anything in the comments that would specifically explain how to make it better? I don't have your paper in front of me, but it so stood out from the other papers that I can practically recite it verbatim, and thus here's what I would suggest, over and above what I wrote in the comments. Because usually, that's how I roll: I refuse to tell you what to do differently next time unless you specifically write to me. But good on you! You figured out my secret code, and thus I'll give you REAL feedback now!"

You can see why the song is necessary, no? For your viewing pleasure, here's the video. Sing along, if you're so inclined, or suggest more lyrics. And picture me with that hair...

Fakin' It Til I Make It

Are there any history peeps out there? Particularly ones who won't want to nail my feet to the floor for doing a little work in their discipline? I hope so, because I'd love some advice. Be gentle...

So, I'm teaching an liberal education course on a particular topic---the literary and cultural production of a particular array of ethnic groups. I should remind y'all here that this is a set of people that the students have little to no direct knowledge or information about. As in, brainstorming a list of popular culture representations---or any associations AT ALL---of/with these people didn't take long, even with prompting. Particularly because I have to constantly remind them of the difference between these people as they have inhabited the U.S. for generations vs. people who look like them and come from the largest continent on earth. You know what I'm saying? Hello, forever foreigner!

Right, so. I've found that it's crucial to give them some historical background on each of the groups in order to help them understand the ways that immigration patterns and geopolitical contexts shape the daily lives and experiences of these peoples. I like, particularly, to assign sections from one of the first, and still most cited, historical book in the field. Why, you ask? [You'd be alone in that asking; I try to explain my rationale to the students, and they think I've gone mad. Just like today when I tried to explain Farm Aid in the 80's. Hello? Willie Nelson? Anybody? Bueller?] For at least two reasons: the book is comprehensive but very readable; it carefully analyzes the difference in the treatment of immigrant populations and their communities on both the mainland U.S. and the state of Hawaii (which really begins to highlight the power wielded by a majority population); and because, on occasion, the author inserts his own personal stake in the history he's documenting. [Yes, I know that's three! Thank you!]

So what's the problem, you ask? Is it that the students are bored with the text? Is it that they don't read it carefully? Is it that they value the "truth" of it over and above that of the literary texts we're using? Well, yes, but we're hashing that all out---not my main issue. My main issue is this: what the hell are the best practices in history pedagogy? In other words---how do you people teach this stuff?!! Seriously. I've never been much of a lecturer, and I'm still not. I'm perfectly prepared to lead students in the practices of interpretation of a text---whether that be a work of literature, a film, or a visual art piece (or, more likely, a print ad or a website. Puppybowl? WTF?!). But when it comes to guiding them through the historical text, I'm a bit at a loss. What's really important to me is that they understand the relationship between the oral histories and, as they call them "stories" that the author includes (ah, narrative, my old friend!), and the economic and legal situations that condition those "stories." As in, when the government says you can't own land, and neither can your children, it has an effect on your relationship to the nation, yo. So, not to be all pedantic, but how do I avoid being pedantic? What kinds of questions do you people ask to help students get the point?

And on a related note, I mentioned, offhand, in class the other day that the American government was implicated in the overthrow of the Hawaiian government, and imprisoned Hawaii's last queen in her own palace until she abdicated her throne. Oh, looks of shock and surprise around the room! Quel horreur! Um, is it safe to assume that this is not common knowledge, or should I just chalk this up to the provincial nature of my students' education?

When You Know You're in Trouble

• When it's still dark out when you get up, and you're in Daylight Savings time.
• When you think to yourself: do I need a cup of coffee before I start grading?
• When it's 10 a.m. and you're ready for a nap.
• When you still have two papers to grade, an article to read, and classes to prep in the next 3 hours.
• When you haven't showered yet.
• When you woke up formulating arguments against the faculty members who passive-aggressively dismissed your field and blamed it for the downfall of an entire core curriculum requirement during a meeting with the Provost yesterday.
• When your plan for the weekend is to both catch up on grading AND write an abstract.
• When your birthday is a week away and you haven't had time to play for it.

Anyone else know she's in trouble?

Allegory, Sweet Allegory

When you work with contemporary texts, you don't see much action with allegory. I don't know if it's because the Modernists exhausted it, or living writers have shied away from the medieval or what, but I don't get to work with it so very often. I do find, however, that there are several allegories that work as my pedagogical models. Newton and the apple; Joycean epiphanies, you name it. My favorite one of all time, however, is The Miracle Worker allegory. Children of the 70's, cast your minds back to Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke playing out the story of Helen Keller. If I remember correctly, there's an extended sequence of Bancroft taking Duke down to the pump. She signs the word "water" and pumps the water over her hand to indicate the connection between the two (and, many would argue, the role of linguistic/semiotic representation vis-a-vis the world). Through the ever-useful, time-compressing qualities of montage, we see this again and again. Sign the word, pump the water. Sign the word, pump the water. These two things are connected! If you get that connection, you'll see a whole new vista on your place in the world! Perhaps you've had this experience as a teacher? Both the "I just showed Helen the world!" moment, and, more often, the "I have tried every trick in the book but this child is trapped in her own head" moment?

This morning, I had one of the top five latter Annie Sullivan moments of my teaching career. I was meeting with a student about her upcoming presentation on a canonical theorist. I've had her before, and I know this is not her strength. This is not even her weakness or Achilles heel. To follow out this metaphor, this is not even somewhere near her body, but more like down the hall locked in a cabinet. So we're struggling through. I'm signing and pumping, signing and pumping. And she's grasping at straws, one after another. I sign "water" and pump the water. She says "toaster." I sign "water" and pump the water. She says "baby panda." I sign and pump, sign and pump, sign and pump. She leaves, and maybe whispers "wet?"

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'll hold my breath and get my pumping arm ready, but I have a feeling that Keller's parents would have hired a new teacher by now. Miracle worker I'm not.

Stealing Student Eyeballs

You know, when I interviewed for my job, they asked me what the relationship was between my research and my teaching. Now, in retrospect, I know that that's supposed to be one of many cues about the significance of teaching to our little SLAC. At the time, however, I was a sincere graduate student looking for a job. "Well," said naive little me. "The teaching actually feeds the research."

I meant it of course, and I suppose that I've had vague experiences in the past in which something has come up in class that has inspired me to run off and read up on things. Last week, however, I had the real deal. I'm teaching a seminar to majors. It's a seminar that I've taught before, and one that I've never gotten quite right. I've overhauled and redesigned the course, and swapped out many of the texts. I happen to be teaching a novel by an author that I've actually written an article on; an author, in fact, that I long considered writing my dissertation on. I know this bee-yotch, inside and out! I own her and all her works! Last week, however, one of my perspicuous students, however, noted a truly weird syntactical pattern in the novel. I've noticed it before, but the class really ran with it, and I realized that it's dovetailing with some ideas I've had about the genre in general. As I'm finishing up the reading for class tomorrow, I'm realizing that this syntax is all over this novel. Holy beezus! How did I manage to miss this before?! Why haven't any of the other critics besotted with this author noticed it either?!!

Well, clearly, it's because they don't have my class of wondrous curious students. Rock on, students, for letting me see things through your eyes. Even if you're not nearly as excited about your own discoveries as I am.

The Freshman Brain

This year, like last year, I find myself teaching a course comprised entirely of first year students. Twenty two students who come to me fresh out of high school. Students who are 17 or 18. Students who, as they told me today, were in seventh grade when the events of 9/11 occurred. Sweet Jesus.

This year, unlike last year, my class of first years is energetic and easy to get into a conversation. In fact, while last year I was pulling teeth trying to get the students to talk, this year I can't get them to shut up. I have a student who responds to everything I say as if I were only saying it to him. Ten minutes of class discussion is about the outside limit before I see students turn to their neighbors to chat. I meet in a classroom in which each seat has a computer; on the first day of class, the only way I could get them to stop logging into their MySpace and AIM accounts was to tell them to put both hands in the air, like it was some kind of stick-up.

All of this is making me think about the Freshman Brain. There is a small cohort of us working with all first year students, and we've talked a lot about how alienating and difficult coming to college can be. How Maslow's hierarchy of needs kicks in right away (e.g., knowing what time the caf closes is far more important than being able to summarize the reading for class). In the abstract, I have all kinds of sympathy, and it makes absolute sense to me. In daily practice, however, I'm constantly having to remind myself that these students are learning how to participate in college life. Or, as a colleague phrased it to me today: "They're not just learning the content; they're learning how to learn in a college setting. That's a whole lot to learn all at once."

For now, the only allegory that seems to be working is the one that compares coming to college to a semester abroad. They may have a vague handle on the language, but the habits and etiquette are foreign to them. And if we were all good natives, we'd understand that they're trying things out, and that if we want them to enjoy our country, then we should gently explain how things are done, not yell at them and treat them like foreigners.

So I'm trying, daily, to be explicit about the practices that underpin college life. As in "we're going to discuss the reading now, and what that means is that you speak, one at a time, and listen to one another, and think about what your classmates are saying and reflect on how your own ideas intersect with theirs." As in "you don't have to ask my permission to go to the bathroom." As in "please don't ask me repeatedly if we have homework for the next class and what it is, since it's printed in the syllabus and you can look it up whenever you want." Because when I go to a foreign country, I just want someone nice to tell me what to do and how to do it, rather than blundering about and acting like an asshole without knowing it.

I don't know how or when we learned how to be college natives, so it's a bit difficult to shape the experience for someone else. But I'm not buying the idea that students that don't know should be punished, or are stupid or worse, purposely behaving in ways to piss off professors and disrupt class.

That being said, when they packed up their stuff and walked toward the door at the end of class and I was in the middle of a sentence, I did say: "If you do this in any other professor's class, she will bitch slap you for sure. Sit down until I'm done."

Sometimes, the natives get restless.

Madre de Teach-o

I may just have to face the fact that it is physically impossible for me to work on an article two days in a row unless there is a large, loin-cloth wearing, whip-wielding Viking standing behind me. (You know, I just spent five minutes on Google images looking for a picture of that. Why can't I find it? Doesn't everyone have that mental image of the big bald oily guy whipping the rowers?! From whence does that image arise? On another note, this may explain why I don't work so efficiently...) The only other way I get stuff done is when I have the deadline equivalent of the whip-wielding guy; or, as my dear dissertation director said once, "march or die!" And that occasionally occurs, but not so much. Not right now, anyway. Instead, I've been hanging out in my office talking to my mother---because God knows I couldn't talk to her from the comfort of my own home! Does anyone else's parents call them at the office?!

Article, shmarticle.

My mother taught elementary and middle school for 30 years. And yes, she's still largely sane. Now that she's two years into retirement, however, she does have far fewer migraines. Possible causal connection? Go figure. Suddenly, she's been approached by the department head of her local U. because he's recruiting retired, veteran teachers to teach methods courses to education majors. I love this for so many reasons: on a social level, I think it's dandy that teachers who lived to tell the tale can impart some of their wisdom to new teachers. I've often wished that I could bring my mom in to talk to the education majors in my classes. Often, they seem so sweet and idealistic, and I just want them to get a shot of practical and kindly advice that won't crush them, but will give them a sense of what they're signing on to do. There also seems to be a significant intergenerational benefit here; like the social security system, those arenas where people cross generational boundaries a bit can act as community glue. When I was twenty, the only people I knew that were retired were my grandparents. It feels like I could have developed some ways of interacting with non-Gen-Xer's if only I'd had some means of accessing them. And wouldn't that have helped me in my current job! Up yours, alma mater that denied me access to old people!

On a more personal level, I love the idea of my mom teaching college students. So much of what I know about teaching I've learned from her. Somewhere down the line, she mastered that whole: I like and respect you as a person, but I won't accept this behavior. (I don't think I'm confusing this with her parenting style, but there may indeed be significant overlap.) It would be so easy to get mad at students (especially middle school students!), write them off, think that they're stupid, or behavioral problems, etc., but instead, she was always looking for some way of integrating them into the class. My mom also has this deep-seated devotion to student learning, even in the face of oppressive state and national standards. I don't know many other teachers of 13 year olds who would hold to the idea of discussing the Civil War with 40 of them, but she did. Five periods a day, for years. (The mere thought of that gives me the willies.)

The even more personal reason that I'm into it is because I think it would be great for my mom. Like any good second generation Asian American, she has an awe about higher education. She likes to give me the speech about how great it is that I'm a professor, that I have a PhD., that I know all this stuff. (To which I say, "hah." And then again, " HAH!") I think that ingrained belief that scholars are to be respected blinds her to how much she knows from so many years of teaching. As if somehow, experience can't possibly compare to all the book learnin' I've done. As if somehow, teaching history to 13 year olds and not murdering a single one of them doesn't qualify you for sainthood. Or, as she said to me today when we were talking about this: "You have all this practice knowing what you think about something. I don't know what I think about things. I'd have to do a lot of research." To which I replied: "Or, there's the times when I assign a book that I like just to see what happens."

But here was the clincher. I asked her what she would tell new teachers just starting out. Here was her reply (and it's paraphrased, of course):

Oh, well I'd tell them that the most important thing is survival. I mean, you can have the best intentions in the world, but you can't let it be your whole life. The school system is so political now; you have to be able to give them what they want while holding on to some semblance of what you know is learning.

How great is that? That's my mom. She rocks the free world and the developing nations.

Oh, the Irony

Last night, I graded a student's paper draft, and included a number of comments about how, structurally, he needed to make a clearer, parallel relationship between a certain bald, famous, S&M lovin' theorist and his own ideas.

His email response to me this morning: "I think I did what you suggested in the comments. Can we meet and talk about it?"


Meanwhile, I'm reading the draft of my own paper to Senor Fluff this morning. He makes some comments, which include the fact that I need to make my own intervention into the debate more clear.

My (non-emailed) response to him: "I think I did that! Right here! Let me re-read you the sentence!"

Irony, thy name is I'M NEVER AGAIN GOING TO A PRESENT AT A CONFERENCE AT THE END OF A SEMESTER.

Now get back to your grading, bee-yotches.

Heaven and Hell: Registration Edition

One of the worst parts of my semester comes during registration. As a faculty member, it means all of the typical "can I get into your class" requests. In our neck of the woods, all of those go straight to our department head, who manages them (and so her life sucks way harder than mine). But the students either don't know or don't care about this particular system, and so all of us get inundated anyway. I need a macro that says "Dear X--thank you for your interest. In this department, all such requests go through the chair. Please contact Dr. Y." I've sent about 35 of these this week.

In addition to that, however,I also get requests pertaining to my little Academic Unit. I use the word "request" lightly here, as it has to encompass everything from the "please can I add this" to "I demand that you sign me in." There are far more of the former, but on occasion, the "no's" given to the former snowball into the latter. The "requests" that come with reference the ACUN also come from all over campus: students, faculty advisors, administrators, the registrar, etc. Many of them have the smell of desperation. Example: "I misadvised a student and now she's can't graduate on time; can't you just let her into this course, even though it's full?" Or, "can you count this course toward my [nation x] requirement, even though it's a course about [nation y]?" Or my favorite of the week: "I don't know how you expect me, a student you don't know from Adam, who's a major in a different department, to graduate, when I need this class (untrue) because I play soccer and all other courses conflict with that!!"

The only thing stopping me from stealing a weapon and going on a shooting spree is--wait for it--the students in my class this semester. About half of them had planned to take my fall course, which filled in the first day of registration; some of them are in, and the others are plaguing the department head with requests to get signed in. I know that there are all kinds of mitigating factors that should deflate my ego about this: the students know me, and so it's easy to want to continue on into the next class; they really like working with each other; I teach a bunch of contemporary stuff, which is an easy sell; etc., etc. But for a moment, I'm going to bask in the glow.

And as a final note of happiness and "here's why I'm not going postal...yet....", we may indeed be reaching critical mass in my department, in which the faculty who see good things in their students and enjoy teaching them are beginning to outnumber those who have none of the criteria above. So the students? Less beaten down, more excited about reading/ writing/thinking, less afraid to speak their minds. Love that.

And I'm not checking my email until after the easter egg hunt.