If I'd realized that it would be my 200th post, I would have put more thought into it. Anyway, for post 201, here's why I keep the DH around.
























Sweetness.

On being a step-aunt...

Hmmmm...really?

Conferences

All this week I've had conferences with students. Next week they have a project to present. Although the assignment and it's due dates have been in the schedule since the beginning of class, we didn't go over them until last week. Since we're in a kind of time cruch, I decided not to require them to bring a draft of the project to the conference. Now, about the conferences.

I know you should not assume students know ANYTHING...even their own names, but I kind of thought pencil and paper was self explanatory. Or, that maybe when your teacher tells you how to do an assignment you might listen. Nope. Not at all. One girl got out a notebook to look at her outine, because I cannot make her understand this project requires her to read an essay, not give a speech.

All in all they are a pretty good class, but "oh the dum-dum-ativity."

Who do you trust?

Almost 9 years ago a unique confluence of events put me in the DH's path. 5 months after a scintillating lunch which ended with us trying to list all the Outsider's cast members, a special event took place at the Little Chapel of Flowers.

What can I say, once upon a time the DH and I were crazy kids. By kids, I mean 26 years old.

Anyway with just Gisela, whom I am pretty sure was a transvestite, and the Reverend Alex talking about the precious metal in our under $10 wedding rings, the DH and I did our best not to giggle and went for tacos afterwards. Really. A friend of mine, who lived in Vegas, came to our wedding. She offered to take us out afterward. We ended up in this dive bar with a taco special...of course at the end of the night she realized she didn't have her wallet and she was late so we had to take a cab back to the hotel. I thought the DH would kill me.

We spent a week in Vegas with enough money to pay the $50.00 suggested minister donation and for the taxi ride from the Excalibur. Yeah, we're classy. Remind sometime to tell you about how my mom calls me "Champagne." Hostess cupcakes served as our wedding cake and only my Dad asked if I was knocked up. Everyone else was pretty taken aback. My mother said...and I quote..."I NEVER thought YOU'D get married." Thanks Mom.

For only knowing each other 5 months before (one of which I spent in Wa), we've done okay staying together this long. The deal has always been that we get to go to Haiti to get divorced. I've just been waiting until I'm old enough to cougar the cabana boys. The thought has gotten me through some pretty rough times.

Cheers.

The title of this post is from the classic movie Deep Blue Sea. If you don't count watching Orgasmo at my friend Katelyn's house than Deep Blue Sea was the first movie the DH and I watched together. All I knew was that it was a shark movie, which meant I wanted to see it. We kept rewinding the scene where Samuel L. Jackson gets eaten and laughing until we couldn't stand it. Even now, whenever it comes on, we have to watch until that scene. Tonight, in addition to a Battlestar Galactica marathon. Deep Blue Sea was on. Fitting. Some people may love Casablanca or Sleepless in Seattle, but in my mind there is nothing more romantic than L.L. Cool J saying, "You ate my bird." as he tosses a lighter.

Paying for it.

I think I've written before about how much I enjoy it when I'm reading a mystery, or just pulp, novel and I find a quotation or an idea that reaches out of the genre to speak to the reader. Sometimes it happens in little ways. In Black House Stephen King and Peter Straub spend a lot of time referencing and even mirroring passages of Bleak House. I think it's great because a whole bunch of folks who would never think of reading Bleak House will go and pick it up and check it out because it was in a novel they liked. Well, I like to think that happens.

In the novel I'm currently listening to, one character goes on a long diatribe about the quotation, "Take what you want and pay for it, says God." In the book it's supposed to be some sort of Spanish proverb, but who knows.

To me it is interesting to think about life that way, not just the material things. Of course we all pay a high price for the material 'things' we have, but what if you thought of everything in this way. What is the price we pay for love, friendship, family? Too often, I think we feel owed these elements. It doesn't occur to us that there is a consequence for every relationship. We just hope that the price will not come due, nor be too high.

Here's the most important part of this idea...we do not get to decide the price. The price is set before we ever see what's in the window. Because we don't often associate love, friendship, and family with a value/price, I think we tend to take them all for granted. So, I guess my goal, it not to give anything up, but to really accept what I have...consequences and all.

Lent

I'm not catholic, but I have friends who are...and, I have a Virgin Mary medallion from some chapel in France. It should have been something I thought of earlier, but I need to think about what I want to give up for Lent. I never try very hard, or succeed, but I thought this year it might be good to be mindful of my life for a month or so. I don't know maybe the near death experience is just getting to me. Suggestions?

Shrinking...

There isn't too much to report. I missed the dissertation meeting this morning because I had to go to my shrink appointment.

How do you end shrink appointments?

I mean, it's not going badly, we just talk about school stuff. But, I feel like I'm through the major stuff I needed and I don't really want to get into my issues with my parents. I just don't know what to say. I guess I'll just ride out the semester and not come back. They are free anyway.

The Letters...

So far, there's been no word from the White House or my Senator. I'd at least like a form letter reply from someone.

My secret dream is that someone at the WH will read my letter, want to hear more, approve of my idea, AND ask me to run the program. Of course that is like winning the lottery, but hey, I dream big. I learned it from Penelope Cruz. (Sorry for the uncalled for snark. It's early.)

Really, all my hope is placed in the Oprah book. So far I have 16 pages, which is a hell of alot more pages than anything else, it's different than it looked before, I decided on a different structure. More and more people are writing books and I figure that if they can do it, so can I. Actually, I think selling the book as a cheap pdf is a great idea. It cuts out the middle man.

Last night, I twittered for the first time. I'm Somedayphd over there as well, if you want to find me. I live-blogged the Oscars with a friend from the West Coast. I was doing alright until they played all the music. After that, I nearly fell asleep. Honestly, I had no business watching. I haven't see ANY of the films. I had no business commenting because I am not very funny. Although I love Kate Winslet and I think she's finally replace Angela Bassett on my dream list, I'm really sad Melissa Leo didn't win.

Melissa Leo has been stunning since that television show about pony express riders. I can't think of the name, but Advice Monkey knows the one. She may not tell you, though, because it would mean admitting to her one time love of Stephen Baldwin. Anyway she is a versatile and talented actress whom no one seems to really notice. Nobody talked much about her performance, but 28 grams would not have been the same without her. Last night, I was doubly sad for her. She didn't win AND she had the most awful hair. Really. It looked like something an 80 year old woman in 1967 would have done to her hair once a week. It's actually triplely sad because her hair is FABULOUS.

Okay, enough about the hair. It doesn't take away fromt the fact that Melissa Leo deserves a damn Oscar already...especially if you've already given Kate Winslet the Golden Globe. Shake it up a little bit people.

Piping down

It's time for me to be quiet. Not here of course, I'll always be nice and loud here. However, lately, I think I've been too vocal around the department. Really. I've just been complaining (i.e. bitching) my little heart out.

What is happening in our department is nothing that hasn't happened before other places; and, frankly, until it happens somewhere that actually pays me a salary and allows me to vote on issues, I don't care.

There is, however, something interesting about what is happening to our department. Last year, when this particular search was conducted it was because a desperation point had been reached. There was a job to do, but no one wanted to do it anymore. So, in spite of the fact, that the people who interviewed for the job were in various ways probably not the best fit. At least one of them was willing to do the job.

The problem is that very few people really knew or understood what the job really was. The job was presented as administrative when really it was more about management. This in no way implies that there weren't necessary changes to be made, there were. But, the changes needed to be gradual and they also needed to reflect an understanding of the work already done. Obviously, that hasn't really been the case; but as I said I'm done complaining about that.

None of this sounds very interesting until you think about it historically and professionally. Much of the current problem stems from an historic inability of our department to explain what does/is/should go on in the writing classroom. It was assumed that everyone not only knew, but also agreed what should be happening in the writing classroom.

Here are two examples the first of what I was taught when I first got here and the second of what the current trend is looking like.

The writing classroom is a space in which we can use the study of rhetoric to teach students how to think critically. This approach allows students to develop their own strategies for use when they are asked to produce other forms of writing. (See my post about service course.) The problem with this idea of the purpose of a writing class is that it is not very testable. In other words, there is no way to give all the students some sort of test at the end of 15 weeks that says, "Yes! They've mastered this material."

The current trend is to quantify what goes on in the writing classroom. We may still not produce an End of Subject test, but we know we will only have x amount of reading, and y amount of writing; and we will define objectives and goals until all the courses look the same. This makes sure that everyone from fellow faculty to the university at large can look at our information and think they know what goes on in a writing classroom.

The problem with the first approach is that is difficult to explain to outsiders...really to anyone. Even more importantly it's difficult to pull off well. What that means is that when you have a course taught almost exculsively by graduate students is that sometimes the course will go badly wrong. But, usually the wrongness of it all is what we learn from...both the students and the graduate instructor. The other problem with this approach that is specific to our institution is that it became insular. The running of the Composition program went back and forth between two individuals who thought that everyone else understood what they were doing.

The problem with the second approach is that although the numbers will all look pretty, there is no real way to quantify what goes on in a Writing Class. The attempt to articulate what happens in the writing class through quantifiable evidence becomes problematic when the numbers don't add up to the need. In our situation, this is also a HUGE pendulum swing. People who didn't necessarily agree with the former methods are just as outraged by the rash of changes as those who did.

The really crappy part of it all is that since those of us most affected by the changes are graduate students we are simply seen as whining, not as offering an actual critique. People think that everything will settle down when the last of us trained in the old way leave. What they don't realize is that by then, if the pendulum hasn't swung back a little, it will be too late. The Composition Program here is moving from one that thrives and is growing, to one that will stagnate and die.

This probably really isn't very interesting to anyone else. I just think it's fascinating to see the arguments of the profession, arguments that seemed sorted out and decided, play out in front of me.

Absent Faces...

Dr. Snarky and another former faculty member came into town this weekend. Last night, the Diva and I got to meet up with every for drinks. I think a great time was had by all. Dr. Snarky and I got to have a great chat about everything, including my current work paralysis. It helped me think about some of the project in new ways. I won't say it was inspirational or that I'm not still having doubts, but there is another avenue to try. Dr. Pimp was there as well. She hasn't been around the department much this semester, so it was great to see her.

It is unfathomable to me how this department could loose so many fabulous people. Well, I know what the problems are, but you think somebody would realize and fix them. That really doesn't seem to be happening.

Serious Doubt

It was a windy, but beautiful day here. My PWT (protected writing time) is supposed to be t/th/s/s from 7-9am. I didn't do a very good job of protecting it today. A regional two year college conference is in town. My mentor and friend from the Community College helped to organize the conference, so I volunteered to do a little time at the registration desk. Of course, then I found out the DH had an appointment and Dr. Snarky is coming to town, which meant the only good time for me to help out was around 9 this morning.

As I listened to the other folks at the reservation desk talk about grading papers and work, I realized how much I enjoyed my time teaching at the CC. I know some of that enjoyment is colored by the fact that I only taught a 2/2 load and only did it for one year. Still...I miss it.

I spent last night reading Derrida and Levinas. Today, I worked a little then finished reading a novel and thought about everything. I know that it is de rigeur to complain about dissertation writing and I've certainly done my share of it; however, up to this point, my complaints have been of the garden variety. Today, today I really doubted my ability to do this. I cannot seem to get my idea together in my head or on paper. I don't feel like I have anything to work with and I really don't think there is a "so what" to my project. In fact, I don't think there is a project to my project and I don't know where to go from here.

I know, I know. It's natural to doubt yourself during this process. But, honestly, I'm not even in the process yet. If I could get a job at a CC somewhere I think I would take it. I would walk away right now. I know the CP would hate me forever (we're supposed to do this together). I'm just not sure I can take it.

Not Where I Should Be...

Generally I do what is required of me, but today I just can't. There are too many factors at play and I just don't feel like it. It's liberating to learn it's okay not to feel like it. Don't get me wrong, if this were a life or death situation I would absolutely be there, but it's not so I'm not.

In today's New York Times there is an article about grade expectations. It's an interesting piece. It's not cutting edge journalism or anything like that, but it's nice to see the issue get some attention.

Every semester I mean to give a speech about what it takes to get an A in my class in order to underscore to the students that it probably takes more than just showing up, but I always forget. Today, I think I'll bring in that article and talk to them about what it means to get an. Maybe, I'll make them write about it. Ooooh yeah, I'm evil.

Opinion time...

The following 'Open Letter to Ninth Graders" is currently circulating on a listserv I read. What do you all think?

An Open Letter to Ninth Graders

Patrick Sullivan

Preparing our students, long before they become our students.
Dear First-Year High School Students,

I am one of the co-editors of What Is "College-Level" Writing?-a
2006 collection of essays that focuses on the difference between
high school writing and college-level writing. Because of my work
on that book, I've spent a great deal of time in the last five
years thinking about what students need to make the transition from
high school to college.

Many studies and reports in recent years have argued that there's
an important "expectations gap" between the skills students
are typically bringing to college and what college teachers like me
think students should be bringing with them to college. This letter
is an attempt to state those expectations clearly, at least from my
perspective.

I offer you my advice and encouragement as you embark on your high
school career because I think there's a lot that you can do on your
own to get ready for college. A good place to start is with some
advice from Stephen Covey's book The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People: "Begin with the end in mind." I am advising you
to set clear and specific long-term goals for yourself and then
work incrementally over a period of time to meet them. I would like
to provide you here with a number of specific goals that you can
work toward over the next four years.

Let's begin with perhaps the most fundamental of all college-
readiness skills- reading.

Reading

Reading comprehension, as measured by standardized tests like the
SAT and the ACT, is certainly an essential college-level skill.
Students in college are required to read an enormous amount of
material across a formidable range of disciplines, and college
students must be able to understand and engage with this material
thoughtfully. Reading is a foundational skill that makes success
possible in virtually all areas of your college education.

Strong reading comprehension skills, though, do not in themselves
guarantee that you are ready for college. The best college students
I've worked with over the years have had a number of other reading-
related strengths in addition to strong comprehension skills, and I
would like to briefly outline them for you here. Remember, you have
four years to work on these.

* Students who are ready for college like to read. If you don't
like to read, you are going to find college very difficult.

* Students who are ready for college have read some good books as
well as some important books while they were in high school. I'm
not suggesting that you need to follow any particular or
prescriptive reading list, like the one that literary critic E. D.
Hirsch includes, for example, in Cultural Literacy. But a high
school student who is ready for college should have some sense of
our shared intellectual and cultural history, as well as at least
some exposure to work outside the Western cultural tradition. A
high school student who is ready for college should be able to
recognize and respond in some thoughtful way to, say, a reference
in a lecture toKing Lear. Ideally, a student ready for college
would have some visceral sense of what Lear feels like as a
dramatic experience and as a point of reference in our common
heritage. The same can be said about the book of Job, Toni
Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Cervantes's Don Quixote, Willa Cather's
My Antonia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude,
and Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory, among others.

* Students who are ready for college read for pleasure. Reading is
not something that a student who is ready for college always
associates with "work," "discomfort," "inconvenience," or "pain."
Students who are ready for college enjoy reading.

Being able to enjoy reading is often the result of a long
engagement with books and the written word that cannot be replaced
by "cramming" or taking special college preparatory classes. The
students whom I have found to be most ready for college have loved
books and loved to read. If you don't love to read, you will
probably be confused and frustrated while at college. Reading is
perhaps the most paradigmatic activity of a liberal arts education.
It is where learning begins at college. You have four years to
learn to love to read.

Writing

Strong writing skills are, of course, essential to college success.
As a longtime composition instructor, I know that there are many
things that high school students can do to become strong writers.

First of all, you should expect any piece of serious writing to
require considerable effort. Students who are ready for college
routinely plan to produce multiple drafts of essays; expect to read
and reread assigned texts; expect to think and rethink key ideas
they are exploring in their essays; and routinely ask friends,
family members, tutors, and professors for feedback about their
work. High school students who are ready for college know that good
writing does not get produced without considerable effort, and they
are willing to make that effort. Most of the time they do such work
enthusiastically.

Students who are ready for college come to college interested in
learning how to become better writers. Many of the most problematic
students I've encountered in my teaching career come to college
unable or unwilling to believe that they have anything left to
learn as writers. (I've been writing seriously now for about thirty
years, and I'm still actively looking for ways to become a better
writer.) Students should come to college with the understanding
that they have a great deal to gain from listening to their
professors as they discuss and evaluate their written work. In
fact, students who are ready for college understand that this is
where much of the most important learning in college takes place.

A whole range of behavioral and attitudinal qualities are also
essential to anyone who hopes to be a successful college-level
writer. English professor Kathleen McCormick described these
qualities memorably in an online exchange among contributors to
What Is "College-Level" Writing? Commenting on an essay by Kim
Nelson-a student whose contribution to the volume described the
process of completing a college-level essay on J. R. R. Tolkien-
McCormick wrote,

Let's begin by listing many of the skills with which Kim entered
college. I think they should be divided into two types: behavior
skills and writing skills. Behavioral skills are not exclusive to
college-level writing, but without them, it is hard to achieve
anything, and they are skills that few of us articulate as
explicitly as Kim does, so I think they deserve to be underscored:

* Work through "panic" and refuse to procrastinate.
* Pace yourself to work on assignments for an extended period of
time.
* Find others to help you (parents, teachers, friends at dinner,
tutors at the writing center).
* Recognize that a critique by a professor, while initially
disheartening, is helpful.
* Initiate repeated visits to the professor.
* Value intellectual work and collaboration and validation more
than the grade.
* Brainstorm in note form.
* "Bang out" an outline and critique it.
* Choose quotations.
* Develop a thesis.
* Transfer writing skills learned in high school to the college
situation.
* Maintain sensitivity to language use.
* Reread texts you plan to write about; underline.
* Do library research.
* Listen to multiple levels of textual analysis.
* Rewrite and revise your thesis and writing.

Thinking

I would advise you to seek out classes and learning experiences
that challenge you. Research is beginning to show us that the brain
responds in very powerful and positive ways to cognitive
challenges. Don't limit yourself to subjects or activities that are
familiar or easy.

Students who are ready for college bring with them a curiosity
about ideas and an interest in encountering new ways of looking at
the world. In fact, one of the reasons they come to college in the
first place is to expand their minds, to encounter new ideas and
perspectives, and to grow. High school students who are ready for
college have genuine curiosity about the world and the people in
it. Do you?

Listening

Listening is a vastly undervalued and underappreciated skill in our
culture. Strong listening skills (and the patience and empathy that
make listening possible) will be enormously valuable to you in all
areas of your life, in college and beyond. Listening skills will
certainly help you move toward a more open and welcoming engagement
with the world and with others.

Strong listening skills also make possible healthy, positive,
respectful human relationships. Much of college success depends on
establishing strong working relationships with professors, college
staff, and fellow students. Such relationships are built, of
course, with strong listening skills. Students who are unable to
listen are typically unable to learn, for all the obvious reasons.

Good listeners bring to any interaction with others a number of
important qualities, including patience, empathy, personal
generosity, emotional intelligence, and respect for others. Good
listeners are also able to suspend an interest in themselves and
focus instead in respectful ways on what others think and feel.
Students who are ready for college have done some of the important
personal work that makes this possible. Listening is a skill, like
many others, that improves with practice, and one can become a
better listener simply by endeavoring to be one.

"Grit"
"Grit" is another quality that is vitally important for college
readiness. Researchers who use this term suggest that it includes
self-discipline, perseverance, and passion. As psychologists Angela
Duckworth and Martin Seligman note in their recent essay "Self-
Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of
Adolescents," grit appears to be at least as important to academic
success as IQ or "smarts." In fact, all high school students should
hear what Duckworth and Seligman have to say about self-discipline:

Underachievement among American youth is often blamed on inadequate
teachers, boring textbooks, and large class sizes. We suggest
another reason for students falling short of their intellectual
potential: their failure to exercise self-discipline. . . . We
believe that many of America's children have trouble making choices
that require them to sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term
gain, and that programs that build self-discipline may be the royal
road to building academic achievement.

Any student is capable of bringing a quality of joyfulness to their
work at college, and the same can be said for the qualities of
selfdiscipline, perseverance, and passion. Without these qualities,
students can only be considered ready to be bored, lost, angry, or
confused at college.

Attitude Toward College

Drinking, socializing, and taking reckless advantage of "freedom"
on campus lead many students to squander their time at college.
I've seen many young men and women trapped in a protracted
adolescence that often lasts well into their late teens, early
twenties, and beyond. As teachers, we want students to have a
youthful spirit (however old they may be), but we also want them to
bring maturity to the college enterprise.

Some students, usually as a result of difficult life experience,
arrive at college with such maturity. But many do not. In my
experience, mature students are often able to engage with college
in very productive ways. Those who do not bring such maturity,
however, typically cannot. Such students often find themselves
confused or angry or without any real direction.

You also need to understand that the chance to attend college is an
opportunity of incalculable value. Because many students take this
opportunity for granted, I recommend that community service be a
required part of every high school student's preparation for
college. Community service is an excellent way for you to begin
building a balanced and mature perspective on life. Such a
perspective will be invaluable to you when you attend college.

Determining Readiness

I have developed a checklist of the college-readiness skills
described in this article. You can use this practical document to
track your progress in high school and ensure that you are ready
for college by the time you graduate. Visit http://www.aaup.org/
AAUP/pubsres/academe/ to view and print the checklist.

Remember: you have four years to develop the skills that you will
need to succeed in college.

Watch Lists

I think I made it on a few of them today. You can help me see how long it takes to get a response. Today, I sent the following letter to the White House and to one of my Senators. (I almost put a name. That would have given you a general location!)

Here's the letter:

17 February 2008

Dear Mr. President, or whom this may concern,

When speaking of education in the country the immediate needs and concerns of the K-12 system often overshadow the needs of the University system. The need to get children ready for, and interested in, going to College, outweighs the need of the students who’ve chosen to remain in College to further their education. As a graduate student, I’ve watched my ability to get grants diminish and my reliance on student loans swell.

As I work toward earning my PhD in Rhetoric and Composition, I watch the job market around me shrivel. More and more Universities rely on adjunct faculty, people who will work for a certain number of credit hours rather than a salary and benefits. Hiring adjuncts is cheaper for the University because they can use them as needed and not be required to maintain a tenure track line in their budget. From personal experience, I can see that when I graduate I am more than likely to spend a few years as an adjunct before I can find a full time position.

The problem is that an adjunct’s pay rate is usually quite low. A recent article in the LA Times about Dr. Biden stated her salary was, “$900 to $1,227 per credit hour. (That means each semester her pay could be from $9,000 to $12,270.)” Dr. Biden works at a Community College, but University rates are not much better. If you look at what Dr. Biden could make for a year of teaching, it’s about $24,540, before taxes. If I made that amount, and I will not make much more, I would have to pay my rent, own health insurance, bills, and a student loan bill, which would be nearly impossible.

University and Community College budgets must feel the squeeze of these hard economic times, but they will also see an influx in students, require more and cheaper faculty. They will not increase more expensive and long term full-time positions. They will increase their adjunct faculty. In the English department this has happened time and time again. (If you are interested read Eileen Schell’s Gypsy Academics and Mother Teachers.) I propose a plan to help Universities and Community Colleges save money and help graduate students relieve their student loan dept.

Universities and Community Colleges around the country could enroll for a specialized adjunct work force of recently graduated graduate students. These students would work full time for adjunct pay for a period of years. By agreeing to teach wherever they are assigned for a certain amount of years they will be relieved of a certain amount of their student loan debt. This kind of program would help prevent the glut of the Humanities job market and encourage others in nursing or science programs to teach for a while.

While I have other more specific ideas about implementing such a program, I won’t share them until asked. Thank you for taking the time to read through my proposal.

Respectfully,

Of course, I tweaked it all a little bit for my senator, but not much. Since it was an email, I also signed my own name, but that is strictly a need to know basis.

Academic Freedom

Once again Stanley Fish has managed to create a maelstrom among academics. Apparently last week he wrote about a case of a professor, Dan Rancourt, fired for giving his students 'As' on the first day and turning his physics course into something much more political. Rancourt describes this as 'academic squatting' - taking a course that already exists and turning it into something else.

This week Fish responds to some of the comments from last week. He attempts to reiterate his position on Academic Freedom. In short Fish thinks that professors should do the job they were hired to do and not hide behind "Academic Freedom" if they are not doing the job they were hired to do. It doesn't really sound so bad, particularly when Fish uses extreme activist teachers like Rancourt as an example. However, this week he also claims, by quoting and supporting a commenter, that professors use Academic Freedom as an excuse to arrive late or not engage in academic rigor.

Fish goes on to say:
So these are the two conceptions of academic freedom that are in play: academic freedom as the freedom to do the academic job (understood by reference to university norms and requirements); and academic freedom as the freedom to chart your own way, to go boldly where no man or woman has gone before, constrained only by your inner sense of what is right and true.

Honestly, I've never met anyone, even activist teacher's, who took this as a stance within the University. This is where Fish goes wrong. He ignores the need to define the "academic job" and secondly he paints the alternative as broadly absurd. The problem demonstrates itself in the reponses to Fish's two articles. The responses tend to engage with either one or the other option without questioning what is behind either.

As for Rancourt and others, I don't believe the just suddenly became "radical." A very, very brief Google search turned up Rancourt's University of Ottowa home page, which descibes him his commitment to activism. Whatever, the true issue is, it seems like the University of Ottowa knew what it was getting when it hired Rancourt and/or gave him tenure.

If you are interested I've included a link to Rancourts blog on the right. He is the "Activist Teacher."

Graphophobia

My life has never followed a "traditional" direction, to say the least. The year after I got married we moved in with my in-laws. During that year, my mother decided to move back to MN. While I understand her discomfort staying at my in-laws, I don't necessarily agree with her decision to stay up north with my aunt. There are no jobs where we are from. None. There hasn't been for years. If she would have stayed a little longer in the Cities with us, I think she could have found something good. Who will ever know.

A few months after she got settle into life in the hinterland, the DH and I went up to see her new trailer. Honest to God, a double-wide in a trailer park. My other Aunt lived next door. I really cannot make this stuff up. Anyway, while we were there one of my cousins came to visit. She brought her 4 kids. Her oldest is a girl and the others are boys, at the time I think they were around 6 and 8.

My cousin, my mother, and I sat around her kitchen table catching up. The kids were all pretty wound up and loud. You know how a trailer full of kids can sound. All of a sudden we heard a huge crashing noise. We hurried into the living room. The DH was sitting on a love seat, pointing at the kid, saying "He came at me with a pencil."

The kid...I mean the six year old was lying on his back, legs in the air like a stink bug on top of the remains of a plastic coffee table. Do you remember the ones you could put together like legos? Like that. The DH had apparently grabbed him and body slammed him into the coffee table in self-defense. Sure, the DH is small, but it's kind of hard to imagine him being impaled by a six year old with a mechanical pencil.

Being the concerned relatives that we are, I think all three of us doubled over in laughter as the DH tried to explain how the six year old terrorized him with the pencil before coming at him with it raised like the knife in Psycho. The DH loves to tell the story to defend himself. I still nearly pee my pants just thinking about it.

I wish The Thing didn't try to show you the monster.

Being a Redneck...

Not having kids means I don't really qualify as a Redneck Mommy. But, since I want to share in the electric moment, I will blog about being a Redneck Daughter. Growing up so close to small town Canada means it counts. If you look closely you'll see that Fort Francis is really in Canada. I bet The Redneck Mommy doesn't even know about Fort Francis. It was about 7 blocks from my house.

You know you've grown-up a redneck when:

• Your imaginary childhood friend was Fonzie. Don't worry, according to my mom I always made him wait outside when I went to the bathroom. It explains so much.
  
• You went out trick or treating on Halloween and came home with a kitten in your bag.
  
• When you were about six your mom thought was a good idea (and in no way racist) to put brown eyeshadow all over your face and a diaper on your head so you could be Aunt Jemima. Seriously, I still can't believe it.
  
• When you visit your redneck relatives they make your husband bury a dead rabbit. The rabbit was killed by all the mosquitos.
• When there are more pictures of you naked in a sink than anything else.
• There are pictures of you about 3 years old riding on your dad's motorcycle and other pictures of you riding a huge fish.
  

There are plenty more where those came from, but they probably deserve their own posts. Mostly, I just hope that should I ever have kids, or adopt them, that I have the wisdom, sense of humor, sorry humour, and courage to be a Redneck Mommy.

The Road to Hell

First things first...you try confining a puppy for 10 days. Yeah. It's only day one and I am going insane.

Secondly, I just sent a brief email to the Department of Education. I am not sure that was the appropriate place to address my concern, but it is a place to start.

I think we need a "Teach for America" type student loan forgiveness program for university faculty. Colleges and Universities could sign up for the program and graduate students would agree to teach somewhere as an adjunct for so many years. The Colleges and Universities would save money by not hiring full-time employees (I know that could be bad. Maybe there could be some deal about the replacement hiring having to be tenure-track.) We could have our student loans cut back or forgive AND in the process the money we would have given student loans would go back into the community through grocery shopping, etc.

Really, I think it is a brilliant plan. Since the government/bank has already loaned the money, it has already spent that money and wouldn't really be losing anything. Hmm...I'm sure there is some capitalistic reason not to do it.

Healing...

Moshe's cast came off yesterday. We had to take him back to the vet today for some xrays. They were also concerned that he was not using his leg properly because of nerve damage.

He seems to be using his leg fine now, so I think it was just a matter of not knowing what to do with it. For most the last three weeks of his 12 week existence he's had a cast that was longer than the rest of his legs and weighed as much as he did. It makes sense that it might take a while to get used to not having it.

He's pretty funny limping around, and pretty quick. Watching him randomly stretch his leg straight back or tentatively put it on the ground, makes me think back to my first days learning how to walk again and my first days at home. When I go up and down the stairs now, I forget how hard it was for me at the beginning. All my movements seem normal again, but I remember that first day home and how hard it was to slide across the bed or get up from the couch. Because I didn't need it for that long, sometimes I forget how much I really did need the cane.

I didn't really expect it to happen, but in many ways I've already begun to take my recovery for granted. Even the shower chair in the bathroom just looks like another spot to hang towels or store reading materials.

Grindstone...

I've been blogging everyday, well, I took a couple of days off here and there since November. It's been really good for me...maybe, a little too self indulgent for all of you. However, I've noticed a marked difference in my writing both here and when I try to work on the diss.

Generally, I tend not to think of this space as really writing. Since I know most of you who read, I'm comfortable publishing stuff that would normally get a second or third look before everyone saw them. More and more often, the quality of the first draft is changing. It's still not great, just different.

Wait, writing everyday is good for you?! This should not be news to a Compositionist, but, frankly, I've always been a little bit more do as I say, not as I do. It's about time I did as I say. Transfering this writing space, where even when I've nothing to write about I can write, to my diss is still something to work out.

Since we tend to, or need to, think of writing as a romantic act and MUST protect our genius I cannot bring myself to share my diss here. But, maybe I can still use your help. I'm struggling with the "so what" factor. It's pretty typical of my ideas and writing. I'm great at pointing out ideas, no so great with the "What makes them important" element.

So, here's the broad, weird question. Why do we need to understand more fully the relationships between individuals and institutions? What can currently help us to do that?

Wading vs. Jumping

For the most part I spent the last three months anxiously awaiting the new semester. There was that brief "between the holiday" period, but we don't talk about it anymore.

Anyway, although when I think about my progress I'm amazed, I still say I was ready to go back when I left the hosptial. I couldn't do everything and it would have been rough, but I was ready to teach. I'm still ready to teach. However, this process has been more like jumping in that wading. Sure, I'm only teaching one course this semester, but I"m also interning in a course and trying to write an article and a dissertation.

Instead of just being on campus MWF. I am on campus every day. There is always an appointment or meeting or some other such nonsense and that wears me out. My class turned in essays on Friday. Essays I should have graded this weekend, but I didn't. I didn't do anything this weekend because I needed to just sit.

I know I'll get used to the schedule again, but until then. I am officially tired of being tired.

Respit

The couple of days off were nice. Friday I actually worked on the prospectus, so I didn't really feel like facing another blank square.
Yesterday, I took the day of from everything. My BSG peeps came over and that was all I did.

Unfortunately, it means I have a lot to do today. My class turned in papers on Friday. Since there are only 12 of them and they are only two pages, I have no excuse not to get them back by Monday. I also promised to write a response for the class in which I intern. They didn't really know I'd be reading all their stuff, so I said I'd let them read mine. It's actually pretty nerve-wrecking.

I guess I'd better get to it.

Fear of change

It's not that I am overly tired or anything like that, but I have had to be on campus EVERYDAY for the last couple of weeks. It doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon.

Initially, my big concern about returning back to school was my stamina. It hasn't affected me at all. It's just that being on campus right now feels like an imposition. It puts me out. That is certainly not the mind-set I need to have, but it's there for now.

This week and last week I've participated in taking various candidates out to lunch. On the way to lunch last week, I realized that all of it makes absolutely no difference to me. Sure, I'll see these people in the hall next year, but other than that - they will make no difference in my life.

There is one professor, who seems super nice and is always very friendly to me, but I don't like her because she is in Dr. Snarky's office. How stupid is that? I know it's stupid, but I cannot help myself.

Charlie...you're hurting me

Okay, this kid is not as good as Charlie's older brother, but I love this video. The poor little guy just cracks me up. I think this is was grad school feels like all of the time.

Survery says...

Do I want EndNote? I've been contemplating this for over a year. As I really starte getting into this article/dissertaion, I think that if I want to start using it, I should do it now. I'm just not sure if it is worth it. Anyone out there have any thoughts?

Understanding our courses...

Today at the book fair a first year TA said, "Do we have a critical thinking course?" Without even a pause I said, "Yeah, 101 & 102." There was a round of tittering from other first-year students. I found myself giving a much condensed version of last night's rant. Really, of all the changes being made...it should be ensured that everyone teaching 101 & 102 knows they should have a critical thinking component. Grr. Arrgh.

Professional Disagreement

In order to avoid working on my prospectus, I’ve spent some time perusing other blogs or incessantly checking my Facebook page. Since she is now working in a new setting a friend (Italian at Heart)started a new blog about her teaching. I understand her joy at being in a new department, but I want to point out something.

In her blog the IaH mentioned that at her new school composition is clearly labeled as, and clearly understood to be, a service course. She also said that everyone here at her old school “was so caught up in making sure tat the course wasn’t designated ‘service,’ they really lost focus that it WAS A SERVICE COURSE!”

The IaH used to teach at the junior high level. Her experience with the requirements made of teachers and students at that level would make teaching writing seem like a service course. I mean that when the goal of a course is meeting certain benchmarks any course becomes a service course.

However, at the University teaching writing (composition) carries both a different function and a different history. The failure of this department does not lie in the desire to make sure that composition is not a service course, but the failure of the department to really explain why composition should not be seen as a service course.

There are several reasons for not thinking of composition as a service course, which I have to note does not mean that grammar or writing basics are ignored. The easiest place for me to start is to ask you to step back for a moment and imagine a general education course in mathematics. No one would expect that if you took Math 101 you were ready for Accounting 201 or Chemistry 320. Why is that? Well, because while both Accounting and Chemistry require math, they require different types of math. Math 101 just cannot do it all, which is why Accounting and Chemistry have their own beginning courses.

Since writing is such an integral part of so many disciplines it becomes easy for the history professor to say, “I can’t believe these kids can’t write. What do they learn in Composition?” In that moment the History professor forgets that History as a discipline actually asks students to write in a very different way from English. The DH and I cannot read each others papers because the way our disciplines (History & English respectively) use verbs and voice is so vastly different. I tell him to take out all the passive voice and he tells me to put it back in. The same is true of the writing in Chemistry, Dance, Theatre, etc. It boils down to the same problem as the fictional Math 101. Composition cannot teach every kind of writing.

So, what does composition teach?

Well, I believe that composition should teach critical thinking. I don’t teach my student about the rhetorical triangle in a vacuum. I teach them about the rhetorical triangle because it is a tool for them to use when reading anything – Math, History, Dance, and more importantly the assignments they receive in those courses. When they leave my composition class, they are not ready to write in any discipline; however, they are, hopefully, ready to read and understand any discipline.

Isn’t that a service to other disciplines? Why does labeling composition as a service course matter?

As I have explained there is the perception among other disciplines that if there is a section of the University teaching writing, then it is no longer their responsibility to teach the writing that is important to their field.

The history of Composition and its place within the University are an element of this discussion as well. If you are really interested in this topic you should check out the work of Eileen Schell, Nell Noddings, Gary A. Olson and Susan Miller. Historically, Composition has functioned as an underling to “English” which stood for Literature. Historically, Composition has been taught by women and graduate students. These are groups who would do such intensive work to free-up the tenured faculty to teach courses in their specialty and/or research; they would also do the work at a much cheaper rate. Keeping women in these “service” courses was one way to allow women into the academy, but not allow them to participate fully in all of its functions.

As Kenneth Burke taught us, we view the world through terministic screens. The language we use to build those screens matters. When we label one particular course subservient to others, it keeps the people who teach those courses also subservient. The movement to recognize Composition as a field was a movement to remove that subservient status. When we continue to think of Composition as a service course it is a disservice to all of those who worked long and hard to make sure that what we do in the classroom matters as much as anyone else in the field of English.

Advice....

Subscribing to a professional list-serve has often been a pain, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to unsubscribe and everyone once in a blue moon there is something interesting on there. Yesterday, someone asked people on the list if there were any job letter errors that would ensure an applicant didn't get an interview. Since I hope to go "on the market" next year, I thought this would be a good thread to follow.

Unfortunately, so far...and I'll admit I haven't waded through all the responses, the majority of advice has not been about errors but about tailoring your job letter. If a letter is too generic or boilerplate they either don't read it all or can't figure out why the candidate might be good for the position. Now, this is good advice, I'm not trying to advocate for rote letters. It's just the advice that is always given...at least around here. I'm well steeped in why I need to make the job letter count -- why I need to make sure it tells the committee why I fit their job. That's not exactly the advice that I need.

I know not all departments are like mine, but I do have to day that in spite of all my recent complaints, they do a good job of making us "marketable." I know they want us to get jobs to keep up their placement rates, but I think there is a genuine desire to help us figure out what it is that makes a position work for us. That is important, as one respondent pointed out,

"When graduate students have flubbed, it's often because their letter entirely unexceptional -- I can't see any reason to interview them over the other 30 ABDs in the pile. (And, FWIW, I think this was me when I came out of grad school!). At that point in your career, I think it's often tough to see what distinguishes you from your peers.
And yet, looking back, I can now see what defined me at that stage in my career -- and it's clearly what got me my first job. So it may help to talk with mentors and friends about what makes you "you," professionally speaking."

My letter may end up entirely unexceptional, but I think it will be for other reasons. Our faculty, at least the ones I work with, do a good job of helping us figure out 'what makes us, 'us' Unfortunately, I think part of that process happens now, where I am, while writing the dissertation. A lot of my problem is that I don't necessarily know who I am professionally. Partly, that is because I have many different interests. Writing the dissertation forces me to choose to priviledge one of those interests over another. It's not something I've ever been good at. There is one piece of advice I saw on the list which made me nervous. One person wrote about the candidate that tries to represent too broad of a field. I think that if I were start writing letters now, that would be an issue for me. My areas of interest are broad. My skills are broad. My experience is broad. When I apply for a job, I hope to bring all of those things to bear. Hopefully, I can find a way to demonstrate that without appearing vague, or unfocused.

'

Irritation?

You know, when hiring/firing people I often find it best to just give them a schedule to let them know they've been hired. Certainly they wouldn't want to know they've been hired before they get a schedule.

At the watercooler...

Well, we don't really have a water-cooler, but my office will do.

Since my job was "simplified" late last semester, I've maintained a pretty low profile around the department. Once before the semester started I stopped by to say hello to the new DC. The other day, I commented that I hadn't seen her and I needed to stop by again so she knew I wasn't avoiding her.

Here's the deal - She is avoiding me. Really. She just walked through my office, which isn't supposed to be a pass through, looking for someone. Granted, she could have been in a hurry, but she barely even stopped to say hello. She didn't even give a reason for being in a hurrry.

Whatever.

I am not really upset by this. It's just intriguing that she doesn't seem to want to see me. Maybe she sense that their move was wrong, whatever its motivation.

It's Dr. if you're nasty

It's not exactly a great start to the day. At least for once I didn't wake up at 7:30am, the problem is I woke up at 5:15am. I took the puppy out and tried to get back to sleep for about 40 minutes before giving up to go make some coffee and oatmeal.

Then I opened the email and this article from the LA Times came through. In case you can't get to it. The article is about how "pompous" it is for Jill Biden to expect to be called Dr. Biden when she only has a PhD in Education. I understand it's historic for a second lady to keep her day job, but if you really want to get all worked up about that then really talk about it.

Don't just thrown in as an aside the paragraph about how little she'll make as an adjunct faculty member.

McClellan declined to say exactly how much Biden would earn, but said she was teaching 10 hours a week and that the range of pay for her adjunct position was $900 to $1,227 per credit hour. (That means each semester her pay could be from $9,000 to $12,270.)

Point out the fact that this "not that much amount" is what most adjunct family members LIVE ON. Or maybe that she is making that much IN SPITE of the fact that she got her PhD, IN SPITE of the fact that she has 20 years of experience.

Or, maybe we should talk about the fact that she chose to work at a community college and what that means for everyone involved. Jim McClellan, the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northern Virginia Community College, (notice how unlike in the article I showed respect for his position by capitalizing his title --you, know like you should for anyone) said,

"She could have done anything with her time and make a difference, but she chose to teach, and teach at a community college. That says to our students that they are important and that community colleges are an important piece of the American educational system."

The article doesn't pay much attention to what McClellan says, but I like that he equates teaching with a way to make a difference. Dr. Biden did her time in school, took the exams, wrote the dissertation all of it. She deserves her title. Notice how the article includes the title of Lynne Cheney's dissertation, but not Dr. Biden's.


Don't even get me started on how undervalued the Community College system is in this country. It's a personal soap box.

Sunday Thoughts....

• I like going to the library with a list in hand.
  
• I do not like doing research in the library.
  
• I think the guy at the coffee shop was intrigued that a girl could carry so many books.
  
• I also think that he shouldn't read "chicken soup" books in public. "Really who does?"
• Maybe he was just bothered because my library books were a little more intense than the Chicken soup stuff.
  
• I knew there was a reason I like to buy Washington State wines.
  
• The corkscrew broke. But I'm no Long Islander - it wasn't my fault.
  
• My ear finally cleared. Yeah!
• It really sucked not to be able to hear out of my left ear.