Defiantly vs. Definitely v1.1

On free pizza being offered at student clubs:

"This is defiantly something that I could get used to."

Well, that didn't take long...

No weekly recap from last week. Those entries were starting to feel forced, a sort of "this week such and such went right, such and such went wrong." In other words: boring.

My dilemma, as of late, is how to avoid this blog from becoming one of two things: A) a golly-gee-whiz teaching is super page or B) a whine-fest about students. Oddly, though, teaching seems to lend itself well to this dichotomy. I rarely have in-between days or classes. Things go right more often than they go wrong, yet when they go wrong they're spectacular disasters.

At least, that's how I perceive it. My new goal, though, is to put myself more in my students' place. A class session that I feel fails is, in their reality, simply a kind of boring hour of their day. It's more productive for me to spend my time working and planning than worry about what they think about me.

Procrastination Panic

Luckily this entry deals not with my habitual procrastination, but rather my students'.

On the first day of class, attached to the syllabus, I give a two month long personal time-line/checklist for my writing students to keep track of their progress on. The time-line indicates that they should have comfortably had their argumentative topic chosen and their research completed two weeks ago. The trouble with time-lines? You have to look at them.

Their drafts are due a week from today. Panic, it seems, has sprung. Most random questions thus far today:

Student A - "I want to do my topic on the dangers of tanning, but I can't find good research talking about how it's bad for your eyes from the library database."
That's because I'm doubting that research exists, and even if it does, this argument is ridiculous.

Student B - "I think I want to do my paper about the end of the world."
Okay...so how is this an argumentative research paper?

In both examples I encouraged these students to rethink and reframe their arguments. We've spent the last several weeks talking about how we break broad topics down into arguable, manageable thesis statements. I've been hammering the point that your research may end up governing the final argument you make, and not the other way around.

Now, I'm hardly a procrastination hater - one of my classes deals with teaching active strategies to avoid it, but I'm as guilty of the vice as anyone else. As an undergrad, I did all my papers the night before. Grad school was even worse, usually with me starting a paper the morning it was due. The difference is that I always knew what I was going to write about, and had the research collected.

Writing this, I can't help but wonder the bigger lesson is: how to write an argumentative research paper, or how to master the academic skills that let you put it off until the last minute, but still get a good grade. Either way, final drafts are due soon, and we'll see what kind of apocalyptic, tanning-bed related papers they've come up with.

Weekly Recap: Week 4 of Fall '09

Ah, the pleasures and perils of having a guest presenter in your classes. On the one hand, you have less prep work to do and get to play "participatory audience member". On the other, you pass control over to another person - when this works, it's sublime, and when it fails, you end up with this.

Since many of my courses are developmental in nature, I go out of my way to give my students any leg-up possible. There usually is a world of reasons why a student ends up in my class as opposed to the "higher" version, and among the most frequent are learning disabilities (some diagnosed, some not). This week I decided to bring in a presenter from our Disability Resources department to do a presentation on Adaptive Technology for writing - basically a brief run-through of the computer programs they have to help students organize thoughts better, have material read aloud through a computer, etc. The University does a good job of emphasizing the idea of universal design, and how often progress made in order to help a certain part of the population actually in turn helps us all (example - think of any time you've had your hands full and hip-checked one of those handicapped buttons that automatically opens a door for you).

My presenter is a wonderful woman and a dear colleague, so this is in no way a criticism of her. To put it plainly, the presentation was a disaster. The software didn't work, every step was fraught with technology glitches, and even when something went smoothly, it just plain isn't interesting to watch someone tinker around with a computer program. I teach back-to-back sections of the same class, and the only thing worse than sitting through a difficult presentation is knowing that in another hour, there's a repeat performance.

I tried to play cheerleader, asking helpful and upbeat questions, finding ways to illustrate how - despite the fact that this program is failing in front of your very eyes - you really should consider using it. I sensed my presenter's frustration and embarrassment grow with each technical snafu. We both knew the class was bombing, but the show had to go on.

My own internal panic began to grow - this class is a struggle already, the kids don't want to be here right now, this isn't a productive use of anyone's time, why did I think this was important...

As class wrapped, a student lingered hesitantly. Everyone packed their books and shuffled off, and she approached the presenter and I:

"Um...I'm pretty sure I have some form of dyslexia. Those programs actually look really helpful - can I schedule a meeting with you to get tested?"

Instantly, I'm humbled. My worries had been so much about myself (and by extension, feeling the flop-sweat for my colleague), that I hadn't considered that this was, after all, a useful session - maybe not to everyone, and maybe not even to the majority, but we gave a student an avenue toward help, and ideally, success.

Weekly Recap: Week 3 of Fall '09

Unrelated Introductory Fact: One of the greatest perks of living in the early 21st century is using a laptop while you're in bed.

Most of my week was spent reviewing lessons/notes from last Fall and muttering to myself about how much work I had to do in order to update them. Being newer to the profession, I'm finding myself having an odd type of stability for the first time that allows me to consistently teach the same classes, and as a result I'm attempting to refine the material and make it better each time. This generally results in me sitting in my office perplexed over my own notes and realizing that there's a good 15 minute gap in a lecture that I'll be teaching the next day, so I better come up with something. Then I get distracted by the internet (damn you mental_floss!) and this happens:

For my writing classes this past Tuesday I had what I thought was a solid lesson plan. About twenty minutes in I realized there was no way I could fill the remainder of the class with what I had left. Being caught under prepared sucks, when an idea hit me: use the last five minutes of class to let them ask me "anything they want, anything at all" about their research paper. Naturally this didn't work, as most students are in a blissful state of procrastination and don't even know their topic, let alone a question to ask me. I did the semi-baffled professor bit ("Really? None of you have a question about this project? That's surprising."), but they held to their guns, doing the if-none-of-us-ask-a-question-he-might-let-us-leave routine.

After class wrapped I took out my notes and a red pen: NEXT TIME PLAN MORE FOR THIS DAY.

Highlight of the Week:

Since school started, the weather around here has been spectacular. On Wednesday I graded a big stack of papers while sitting out in the sunshine. I'm pretty sure there's a direct correlation to how much higher than average the temperature is and how much higher than average their grades turned out.

It Begins...Defiantly vs. Definitely

For some reason my students have a compulsion to load their writing with affirmations. They truly feel the need to sincerely convince me that they absolutely, honestly feel a certain way (HAH! See what I did there? Oh, wit.). While the peppering of adverbs is usually just a bit of lazy writing, the issue that comes up with the most consistency is mistakenly writing "defiantly" instead of "definitely." Spell-checkers fly over this one, and it usually leads to pretty funny mistakes in meaning.

A colleague and I started joking last year about keeping track of how many times this gets misused, and in what context. It only took three weeks for me to catch one this semester, and I figured what better use of a blog than to keep a running list of these. Without further ado, the first entry in what is absolutely, positively, and most assuredly to become a long list:

"I love the outdoors, so I can defiantly spend a lot of time outside."

A defiant position, indeed.

Active Teaching: Looking for Help

After last week's frustration, I've been over-hauling a lot of lesson plans for the next few weeks. This has lead to me reordering a couple of sessions and a ton of work. I've developed some new activities that hopefully will be interesting and informative, but I have a blight on my horizon for next week that I could use a hand with.

I'm talking, of course, about the bane of all writing teachers. The day of the semester that haunts our dreams, waking us in the night, sweating. The lecture where three simple letters combine to become a migraine-inducing storm of frustration.

The MLA Citation lecture.

Personal disclosure. In my College Study Strategies course I came up with a formula for my students to remember:
Absence of Talent (A topic comes with difficulty) + Ignorance (Not knowing about a topic) + Avoidance (Dodging the topic) = Weakness

Despite years of teaching MLA Citations, I find that my weakness formula applies pretty well to myself. I have difficulty with it, I'm not as knowledgeable as I should be, and I avoid it until I must engage with it. Terrible, I know. It's like a chef who can't make eggs.

Please take this post as my attempts to make amends. I'm asking for any input or insight on how to teach this effectively.

Weekly Recap: Week 2 of Fall '09

In a bid to update this frequently, I'm going to attempt to do weekly recaps of my week every Friday. We'll see how long this lasts.

Week 2 of the Fall semester is usually a blunt reality check for most students. The initial fun of "Gee whiz I'm in college!" is wearing down and the realization that they have a ridiculous amount of reading assigned for every class is becoming more and more apparent. Regardless, it was a pretty fun and productive week despite my grump-fest on Tuesday.

My writing classes had a presentation from the library on Thursday for how to do appropriate college-level research. I haven't used Infotrac / Academic Onefile since I left grad. school, and was pretty astounded by the changes they've made in the last few years (would provide a link but it requires campus log-in to access). It's vastly more user-friendly, and even goes so far as to provide citations for you, which leads me to a small dilemma.

It seems that there has been an influx of websites/computer apps that can create MLA (or any other style) citations based on whatever information you provide. The 21st century nerd in me thinks that this is awesome and can save a ton of time for students. My inner writing teacher worries that this is an enterprise that can actually hurt my job. I believe in the value of teaching citations (even though it's dull), yet I can't help but feel a bit like I'm arguing for people to do complicated math problems when there's a readily available calculator.

Highlight of the Week:
One of the courses I teach is Introduction to College Learning. With the right instructor, this is a really fun class that gives students (specifically freshmen) a frank impression of what college life and expectations are.

We were discussing personal values in connection to academic and personal goals today, with an emphasis on active learning. The main "lesson" of the day is to be proactive in thinking about what you want from this experience so as to avoid getting a degree you won't use or wasting your time and money pursuing something you dislike.

After class a student stopped by my office to talk. His problem? He's here pursuing a psych. degree because his parents want him to, but what he really wants is a career in music. He wants me to provide advice on what he should do with his life.

Yikes.

I talked about how this is an age-old issue to face at this stage in life (do I take the "safe" bet that people want me to, or do I follow a passion?) and weighed the options of both choices, pointing out that they don't necessarily exclude one another. I pointed him to the Career Services office and told him to hunt down some Music faculty to discuss his options further. I encouraged him to do an honest bit of soul-searching after getting some more resources, then talking with his family. We concluded thusly:

Me - "Who knows, this could be one of the best decisions of your life."
Student - "Or the worst!"
Me - "But at least it's a decision, and you get to make it. This is your life. You're two weeks into your freshman year of college and making active decisions about your future, and the world is full of people who never make those decisions."

He left my office happy, optimistic, and still thoroughly confused on what to do - but - he's thinking - and any week that ends that way is a good one.

The Grumps: On Not Following My Own Advice

Teaching a developmental writing course is a mixed bag. Some days you get to engage students in critical thought and introduce them to the power language has in our understanding of controversial issues.

And then, there are the other days. The other days are full of somewhat obligatory lessons on how to properly cite MLA quotations, paraphrase properly, and of course the slew of grammatical errors and rules that I still, six years into this profession, struggle to explain.

Today was paraphrasing day. We started out well, looking at a "what not to do" article that was written by a good old fashion sexist, which sparks some good conversation and illustrates how arguments written with little more than an opinion come across as foolish and ineffective. We segued into how internet research works, using some laughably inept websites that came up with our basic Google searches as examples of why it's important for us to shift to using academic research through the University Library system.

Ten minutes into the class and we were rolling along smoothly. The students aren't thrilled to be required to take this course, but it's bearable....that is, until I decide to spend 40 minutes lecturing from Power Points.

Three words in my own defense: I. Know. Better.

However, it's this part of teaching that I'm struggling with - how do I communicate fundamental, factual, and dry material in a way that is engaging, interactive, and effective? How do I make grammar rules fun and snappy? Fair warning: any Youtube links to School House Rock at this point will have dire consequences. Students are interested in that for about as long as it takes to say "meh".

My lesson for the day? Plan better, I suppose, and investigate my resources. There has to be a way to grow and make this work, and the only person who can do that is me.

Kids These Days

Ah, August, and the month-long feeling of neglecting work that comes with it. The new semester is weeks away, and campus life is slowly peppering it's way back into my mind with upcoming advising sessions, workshops, and my kayaking trip at the end of the month. I decided to squeeze one last hurrah in to the summer, so H and I rented a hotel room and headed to the Twin Cities for their Irish Fair.

The event was fun, full of exactly what you would expect: old blokes playing music, young bewigged lassies dancing their legs off (the troupe we saw had clearly kidnapped my younger brother, as their lone boy in the group looked exactly like him), and plenty of Guinness. The crowd was pale, sun-fearing, and big-headed: in short, we were among our people.

While having a pint a group of three older folks asked if they could sit at our table. We obliged and, being that we're all Irish and there was beer flowing, the five of us got to chatting. In typical what-a-small-world fashion it turned out that the folks who joined us were also originally from the east coast, and the Rochester, NY area to be specific. We had some laughs talking about what we missed from back home (the food, the Bills, etc.) and the conversation turned to professions. The two ladies were both retired teachers, and when asked I responded that I too was a teacher. They inquired about my subject and I gave them the short answer: writing.

The alcohol, environment, and generational gap let the floodgates open pretty quickly on what H likes to refer to as the "Kids These Days" conversation. The KTD topic is always an odd one for us, given that we're not that far from being kids ourselves. Sure, we're finding ourselves annoyed at teenagers lately, but that has more to do with their wardrobe choices and bad taste in movies than their penchant for texting.

Now, as a writing teacher I will fully sympathize with those that feel online communication is having a negative impact on formal, professional communication - one e-mail sent to me this past year was titled "y i was absent" - so yes, there is absolutely a professional struggle I engage with on this topic. I suppose, however, that my fear with this shift has more to do with this than it has to do with poor spelling or net-speak. My biggest gripe is the avoidance of actual communication in place of the drawn-out process of faceless conversation. I see it manifest in my sister when she plans to go see a movie with friends, a conversation that should take minutes on the phone drawn out to an hour as texts bounce back-and-forth.

As I said earlier, the KTD topic is a tricky one. It's odd to us to be included in this topic suddenly, as though we've become part of the "Eh, What Can You Do?" club that nudges one another and shares a sidelong glance as the youngsters stroll by with their rubik's cubes, razor scooters, iPods, and other generational signifiers. I find myself griping about people younger than I am, and perhaps this is an inevitability. Perhaps it's some kind of reminder that you're not young anymore - that as each August becomes September, you're getting older. As of this writing, I'm not terribly worried about the KTD. The online communication shift may be annoying, and their writing is pretty abysmal, but I believe that as long as there are tents to have a pint under, tables to be shared with strangers, and - of course - the concern of those older than them, they'll end up turning out alright.

Fredonia

Too long between posts - but a good excuse. H and I road-tripped back to Buffalo to visit family, see two sisters graduate high school, and do a bit of wedding planning. She's been teasing me about not updating this, and rightfully so. It was a lovely visit, overall, capped with a brief stop back at our alma mater to see how things have changed.

We walked around campus a bit, feeling every wonderful twang of nostalgia possible. I'll confess to being a bit worried before arriving - our small, state college holds a special place in my heart, and I was concerned that my memories had idealized the place and that the abundance of new faces (and new buildings) would leave me feeling left out, melancholy, or - worst of all - old. Luckily our pit stop proved to be less of a grasp at glory days and more of a pleasant return to a place that shaped us into smart, ambitious, and clever young adults.

After the obligatory stop at the new book store for campus swag (Why do college hooded sweatshirts always look so cool?) we had a pleasant surprise encounter with a former teacher. H had several classes with Bruce during our time at Fredonia, as did I. Eventually he became something of a mentor, offering frank advice outside the classroom as well. He happily greeted us, asking what we were up to now that we'd graduated and congratulating us on our engagement. It seemed our encounter was a bit serendipitous, as his department was just bouncing around ideas on how to keep tabs of graduates and what we were up to.

Why did Fredonia work so well for me? In retrospect, it's all about the relationships I made. The professors, the friends, the band mates, bartenders, trouble-makers, the woman I'm going to marry...

This entry is spiraling a bit, but what excites me is considering my students' futures - Will they come back? Will they seek me out, introducing me to their fiances? Will they be successful? Sure this is egotistical - they all have their own lives and for many my classes are just a drop in the bucket - but a large part of this profession is helping people develop and it's my sincere hope that a few years from now I'll be able to write about a happy encounter with a former student who's poised to light the world on fire.

The Millionth Word

According to this article, "Web 2.0" became recognized by the Global Language Monitor as the one millionth word in the English language.

Being a tech-savvy word nerd, this headline caught my attention immediately. My inner geek found this to be a poignant and appropriate moment, a definitive example of human possibility brimming with significance. Oh, how this millionth word represented the evolution of human communication, the endless opportuntiy for human growth! I thought what whimsy and meta-fun it would be to share this idea through facebook, as surely this would impress my peers and in turn validate me (this is pretty much the reason I do anything on facebook).

Then I read the article.

While the Global Language Monitor seems to have pretty admirable aims, the nebulous nature of language in itself makes the idea of counting words pretty pointless. Other "English" words making the list include "Jai Ho" and "n00b" - each derived from specific cultures, yet somehow further validated by working their way into American culture and being slapped on a list.

The melting-pot nature of American English is wonderful in its ability to adapt and incorporate. Claiming ownership of a word, however, opens the door to redefining it. At best, redefinitions become watered down versions of their original intention - the word "cool" for example is bandied about so easily and usually with the intent of a marketer, the original tone and concept is forever lost. At worst, redefinitions steal the language of marginalized communities, subverting attempts at expression and rebranding concepts as negative-catch-all-cliches-and-labels.

Personally, I'm continually for an expanding language. The more tools one has to articulate their beliefs and position in the world, the more likely they are to have an empowered role. I guess I should foster my original enthusiasm then at what possibilites this "millionth word" represents, while using the very medium it describes to acknowledge the millions of other words, not on the list.

An Introduction

It's with equal parts dread and enthuiasm that I consider embarking on this project.  Despite writing, erasing, and rephrasing this introduction for the past twenty minutes, the fundamental idea of this journey is exciting.  The dread, however, comes from knowing that I have a habit of starting projects that quickly become forgotten.  Without accountability to anyone but myself, an inclination towards laziness often debunks my best efforts - my gym membership alone can attest to this.  

A month ago I attended a conference where the keynote speaker introduced me to the concept of "adaptive expertise."  On the subject, he writes:

“The ability to change and continually innovate is where the concept of equipping students to be adaptive experts comes into play...Compared to routine experts, adaptive experts are more likely to relish challenges that require them to 'stretch' their knowledge and abilities.  They tolerate ambiguity, at least for a while, and they think of themselves as people who know a lot, yet still know little compared to all that is knowable.” 

– John Bransford, "Thoughts on Adaptive Expertise"

The Adaptive, then, is my attempt to fulfill several goals:

• Chronicle my growth as a professional educator, and also as one continually learning to teach.
• Discuss technology within the context of human thinking, learning, and development. 
• Maintain enthusiasm and engagement within my own thinking, learning, and development.
• Challenge myself out of complacency or boredom and maintain vigorous interest in the human spirit.  
• Be an active participant in global conversations about topics I find fascinating.

Ambitious?  Perhaps.  Yet it's my hope that I step beyond my initial "dread" in order to foster this ambition in order to learn - to grow - to adapt.