Season kick-offs are in the air. The college football season kicked off just over two weeks ago, and the NFL Kickoff Special was last weekend. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glued to the TV as much as a parent of twin almost-4-year-olds can be.
Other seasons, especially at the collegiate level are kicking off (although the term only translates directly to soccer) as well. That excitement, though less palpable on the campuses of bigger schools, is still part of the atmosphere that charges the first weeks of class.
And now, a sport of our own: the most optimistic day of the year for the English PhD, the day (like day one of the NFL season) when anyone can believe that this'll be the year they win the Big One. The day when possibility reigns supreme and pessimism has no evidence, only its legacy, to build on.
Job hunters take your marks (I'm now mixing sports metaphors), the JIL goes live at 2.
ETA: Coming around the first corner and...yes...it's moving very slowly. Incidentally, I'm not on the job market...I'm trying to see if my search committee's job ad is up and spiffy looking...
Friday, September 14, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Teaching your Research
I just got word yesterday that I'll be teaching a grad class on the same subject as my book, which has been lying dormant for at least a year now. I was planning on returning to it in the Spring in earnest, and now the course will force me to. Now if only I can hold off writing the syllabus until I'm caught up with this semester!
Also, since it will be my second grad class in my first three years at this school, I'm taking this as evidence that I did ok with the last grad class.
Anyway, any advice for teaching subjects that are this close to your research are welcome.
Also, since it will be my second grad class in my first three years at this school, I'm taking this as evidence that I did ok with the last grad class.
Anyway, any advice for teaching subjects that are this close to your research are welcome.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Remembering Names
The other day, Flavia had a provocative post about remembering and forgetting names, and one of her commenters noted that while we tie ourselves into knots about remembering the names of our 40-200 students every semester, many of our students do not remember our names, and they have far fewer names to remember.
This got me to thinking about how I remember many of my students names (I am smug that way) and moreover that I remember virtually all of my professors' names almost 15 years later. And then I thought, "I hope some of my students remember my name in 15 years." And then I thought that just maybe some of my professors, especially the ones with whom I'd have no other contact, in different disciplines and such, might like to know that I know their names still, and more than just remember their names, I remember their impact on me as a thinker and almost inevitably, as a teacher.
Anyway, I decided to look a few up and email them, to tell them thank you, belatedly, for being great teachers. I've gotten one response thus far, from a now-tenured professor who was at the time an ABD adjunct. But I don't really require responses. Mostly I just want to remind myself and them that good teaching does make a difference, even if I am my only evidence.
Anyway, I think that you should do this, too. Figure out which professors would never in a million years expect to hear from you, but who shaped your thinking and teaching in unacknowledged ways. And then acknowledge it. Their email addresses are likely easy to find if they're still teaching, and I can't imagine that the blast from the past would be unwelcome.
This got me to thinking about how I remember many of my students names (I am smug that way) and moreover that I remember virtually all of my professors' names almost 15 years later. And then I thought, "I hope some of my students remember my name in 15 years." And then I thought that just maybe some of my professors, especially the ones with whom I'd have no other contact, in different disciplines and such, might like to know that I know their names still, and more than just remember their names, I remember their impact on me as a thinker and almost inevitably, as a teacher.
Anyway, I decided to look a few up and email them, to tell them thank you, belatedly, for being great teachers. I've gotten one response thus far, from a now-tenured professor who was at the time an ABD adjunct. But I don't really require responses. Mostly I just want to remind myself and them that good teaching does make a difference, even if I am my only evidence.
Anyway, I think that you should do this, too. Figure out which professors would never in a million years expect to hear from you, but who shaped your thinking and teaching in unacknowledged ways. And then acknowledge it. Their email addresses are likely easy to find if they're still teaching, and I can't imagine that the blast from the past would be unwelcome.
A Complicated Anonymous Blogging Scenario
Let's say that you're an academic blogger. You have maintained an online presence at this academic blog for, oh, say, just under a year. You feel like while the blog is pseudonymous, that you blog as though your name were attached. That is, perhaps a little more circumspectly than anonymous blogging allows, or perhaps illusorily seems to permit. The point is, you are comfortable in your bloggerly skin, as someone who writes as a professional, but doesn't necessarily want that blog connected to your professional identity. Nonetheless, you are not so guarded about your identity that you don't share it freely in email exchanges, or leave telling hints as to your real life identity.
Now let's say that before you wrote this pseudonymous blog, you maintained a named blog, one that was again, professional enough that it didn't hinder your academic job search process, but was a mix of both the personal and professional (much as your current one is). You closed it down not because of any identity problems, but mostly because you felt that it was time for a change, and that pseduonymous blogging might be a bit safer in the long term (Ivan Tribble got to you, basically, but not badly).
Now let's say that in the intervening year, the old blog was not deleted per se, but that much of it is either missing or difficult to access, even though it can probably all be retrieved.
And let's say that in the most recent issue of College English, on, hypothetically speaking, pages 26 and 27, your old blog and your real identity, are given some thorough consideration and even a long quote. The post is one of which you are proud, but it is itself inaccessible at the address cited. Assuming your wonderful friend would help you with the technology, would you try to restore that post? The rest of the blog? Even if you don't intend to add more material to that blog?
Now let's say that before you wrote this pseudonymous blog, you maintained a named blog, one that was again, professional enough that it didn't hinder your academic job search process, but was a mix of both the personal and professional (much as your current one is). You closed it down not because of any identity problems, but mostly because you felt that it was time for a change, and that pseduonymous blogging might be a bit safer in the long term (Ivan Tribble got to you, basically, but not badly).
Now let's say that in the intervening year, the old blog was not deleted per se, but that much of it is either missing or difficult to access, even though it can probably all be retrieved.
And let's say that in the most recent issue of College English, on, hypothetically speaking, pages 26 and 27, your old blog and your real identity, are given some thorough consideration and even a long quote. The post is one of which you are proud, but it is itself inaccessible at the address cited. Assuming your wonderful friend would help you with the technology, would you try to restore that post? The rest of the blog? Even if you don't intend to add more material to that blog?
Monday, September 10, 2007
No Teacher Left Behind
While Congress debates what to do with the disastrous "No Child Left Behind" policies, The Washington Post reports on an organization that is going a different, much more sensible route: teacher development.
I understand the imperative behind teacher training and certification efforts, but those processes have always seemed just a little backwards to me in terms of their priorities. Of course the reason is that they were frustrating to me personally, but still.
Willow had been teaching at an excellent local high school: a part magnet/part district school in a diverse county(and that's not just code for "mostly African American." It was really really diverse). She had taught students who couldn't read by the 9th grade and students who went on to Rhodes scholarships in the same semester. She loved the job, though with only an MA in English and three years of experience teaching at the college level, she had to go through an alternative certification process which basically taught her the jargon and what she had to write on the board every day to avoid getting into trouble with curriculum hawks. Never mind that in her first year of teaching, her AP students had the highest aggregate scores of anyone in the county.
Anyway, when we had just found out about the impending arrival of the twins, there was a scramble for me to finish, though I had not yet secured what started as my first academic job. So I was recruited by her department chair to join the faculty there, and for a month or so, this seemed like my best option. And not to toot my own horn, I was qualified: 5 years of experience teaching comp and lit at the undergraduate level, three teaching awards in the last two years, administrative, training, and mentor experience in the comp program, experience in workshops collaborating with secondary educators. My praxis test scores were all in the 90th percentiles (my math score, oddly, was perfect; my writing score a few points below).
But because I had not taken the praxis tests in time, I would not be eligible for the alternative certification program (which itself would've been a joke), and therefore would've spent my first year as a "provisional teacher" making half of what I'd make as a certified teacher. And the only reason I'd've been able to teach at all was that the county regularly had a thousand-teacher shortage every year.
The point is, that with all of the emphasis on testing packages, and accountability, the groups that are not being held accountable are the institutions that govern the teachers: federal and state education regulators. Instead of whipping schools into shape, support them into shape, and that support begins by supporting teachers and giving teachers, administrators and schools the flexibility and control to invigorate their classrooms: smaller class sizes, flexible scheduling options, professional development that isn't dry as dust, teacher appreciation that isn't demeaning. Regulating them into lock-step isn't support. It's only robbing them of creativity: one of the most rewarding elements of teaching.
I understand the imperative behind teacher training and certification efforts, but those processes have always seemed just a little backwards to me in terms of their priorities. Of course the reason is that they were frustrating to me personally, but still.
Willow had been teaching at an excellent local high school: a part magnet/part district school in a diverse county(and that's not just code for "mostly African American." It was really really diverse). She had taught students who couldn't read by the 9th grade and students who went on to Rhodes scholarships in the same semester. She loved the job, though with only an MA in English and three years of experience teaching at the college level, she had to go through an alternative certification process which basically taught her the jargon and what she had to write on the board every day to avoid getting into trouble with curriculum hawks. Never mind that in her first year of teaching, her AP students had the highest aggregate scores of anyone in the county.
Anyway, when we had just found out about the impending arrival of the twins, there was a scramble for me to finish, though I had not yet secured what started as my first academic job. So I was recruited by her department chair to join the faculty there, and for a month or so, this seemed like my best option. And not to toot my own horn, I was qualified: 5 years of experience teaching comp and lit at the undergraduate level, three teaching awards in the last two years, administrative, training, and mentor experience in the comp program, experience in workshops collaborating with secondary educators. My praxis test scores were all in the 90th percentiles (my math score, oddly, was perfect; my writing score a few points below).
But because I had not taken the praxis tests in time, I would not be eligible for the alternative certification program (which itself would've been a joke), and therefore would've spent my first year as a "provisional teacher" making half of what I'd make as a certified teacher. And the only reason I'd've been able to teach at all was that the county regularly had a thousand-teacher shortage every year.
The point is, that with all of the emphasis on testing packages, and accountability, the groups that are not being held accountable are the institutions that govern the teachers: federal and state education regulators. Instead of whipping schools into shape, support them into shape, and that support begins by supporting teachers and giving teachers, administrators and schools the flexibility and control to invigorate their classrooms: smaller class sizes, flexible scheduling options, professional development that isn't dry as dust, teacher appreciation that isn't demeaning. Regulating them into lock-step isn't support. It's only robbing them of creativity: one of the most rewarding elements of teaching.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Rocking the Gateway Course
Our English major here does not currently require a gateway-to-the-major course, the kind that essentially sets expectations for how students do the work in English/literary/cultural studies. But we've been kicking it around.
I've been thinking about what one of these courses should look like, or perhaps better, could look like, and trying to think big about such a course--how to best introduce a student (perhaps one who has taken some 200-level surveys, perhaps not) to the work of upper level courses in the department.
I've been thinking about what one of these courses should look like, or perhaps better, could look like, and trying to think big about such a course--how to best introduce a student (perhaps one who has taken some 200-level surveys, perhaps not) to the work of upper level courses in the department.
- Should we work through genres? how many? poetry, novel, drama, short fiction, non-fiction, film etc. etc.
- Should we include theory? How much? How closely should it be tied to primary texts? Should we use introductory texts of go straight to the source (remember, it's a gateway)?
- How much writing should we be doing? How much writing instruction should we be doing?
- How idiosyncratic should the course be, with, say 4 sections per semester? Should they have themes? Can they avoid themes?
- And most importantly: how can we make it exciting? How can we make the standard "3-6 primary texts in Norton Critical Editions with theory alongside" class one that students clamor over? How can we rock out the gateway course?
- But first, how do you do it? What d'ye like, hate or wish about that class?
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Calling all Medievalists
OK Medievalist folks (Dr. V?), here's your chance to save my week. I'm teaching 2nd Shepherd's Play on Friday and Monday--I've read all my textbook materials, done a little theatre history research, brushed up on a couple of the other cycle plays to compare. But still, I'm feeling a little out of my element.
What do I need to remember to tell them that their textbook won't? What are some good ways to teach the play in interactive ways?
And finally: How did they stage the sheep?
What do I need to remember to tell them that their textbook won't? What are some good ways to teach the play in interactive ways?
And finally: How did they stage the sheep?
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