No More Clouds

The practice of using new strategies and explaining things in multiple ways was central to this chapter. Comp Tale 45 meant the most to me in this chapter because it supported my thinking that sometimes teaching requires abstract methods. The author calls her practices of explaining prepositions via the "cloud method" a response to "pseudo-academic mumbo jumbo."

Sometimes I feel like my teaching style might be seen as less serious because I use different comparisons and humor, rather than highfalutin theory. Jennie did something brilliant in using a second grade method that she had learned to explain some of the revision process to her student. She didn't have to tell him it was a second grade lesson; she just had to find the best way of explaining something.

I get bogged down with the arguments and theories surrounded by pedagogy because in reality, there is not ONE right way to teach or explain something.  So often, professors and other educators feel they need to prove their intelligence by how much theory they use. In reality, the goal should be keeping the brains of their students cloud-free.

Hello My Name Is... Jenny from the Block

Don't be this guy...just be Jenny. :) 

If there is one sure fire way to get under Olivia Gehrich's skin, it is to wax poetic about how much more lucrative your major is than mine. The "Major" battles are common in undergraduate programs, because everyone is trying to prove that he/she works harder or is more useful than another department. Unfortunately, this hierarchical system does not end at the BA level.

As Comp Tale 23 points out, dissension and pettiness exist in MA and PhD programs, as well. The literature PhD caught grief from another literature professor about taking a job in the rhet/comp department. Not only is there criticism across the fields, but also within them.

Tale 24 shares another problem that credentials can create. The anonymous author discusses the 4Cs conference--which was held in Indianapolis last year, by the way! :)--and how the "Big Names" dominated an off topic discussion, yet the author was criticized for not being poignant right away.

Unfortunately, this pretentious behavior is something I have seen a lot during internships, conferences, and just in class.  It makes for very uncomfortable interactions and causes me a bit of paranoia. While I want to contribute to the discussion, I never want to seem like one of those narcissistic jerks I've worked with before. Basically, that self-indulgent behavior is bad all the way around.

This section on colleagues seems to get at a lot of the root problems that I have already experienced in some way along the line: pretentious people, being the person who doesn't know something in a crowd, and the hierarchy of departments and degrees. Maybe it's pride or competitive spirits or maybe people are just rude, but in any case, working with colleagues will not always be good or fruitful. There may not be a foolproof solution, but I just try to stay humble and admit when I don't know something, much like the Tale 17 story. You just have to hope the good experiences outnumber the bad and try to be the best version of yourself.

 J-Lo was on to something:
"Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got
I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the block
Used to have a little, now I have a lot
No matter where I go, I know where I came from".

-O

Lesson Plans: Our Community Issue

Lesson Plans: Our Community Issue

Since we are beginning the discussion on lesson plans and creating a syllabus, I think my blog this week will be fitting. Like many of my colleagues, I am teaching the third unit of my ENG 103 course. Their assignment is an argumentative essay about a community issue. As the weeks have progressed, the students see me more and more as an authority in the classroom. Today, before class, a few students even asked me to look over their thesis statement drafts to help make them better. While this is a great sign, I am still nervous about taking on the lesson/unit as a whole.

My lesson plan consists of readings, journal prompts, and activities, but I am looking to add some new ideas, especially in-class activities that pertain to our unit. The areas I am in most need of some guidance are introducing what exactly a community is (basically a “why do you care about this issue” and “why should an outsider of that community care” sort of intro), sample essays, and methods of teaching logical fallacies.

I want to begin with "What is a community? What is an argument?" to help frame the unit as a specific kind of argumentative writing and discuss how argument differs from persuasion. Hopefully, in doing this, the students will be able to choose fitting topics. They have some topics that are banned, such as parking and dining campus services, and they can’t write about a large global issue, such as abortion. If anyone has an idea of how to introduce community or argument, let me know!

In putting together my lesson plan outline, I discovered our textbook doesn't offer any sample essays that fit our version of an argumentative paper. They are more large scale “save the whales” themes. I want to find alternate examples as to not confuse them that “save the whales” is the topic/style I’m looking for….because it is definitely not. I am searching for short essays (2-3) to assign about a community issue, such as putting in a stop sign in a neighborhood, that we can discuss in class. 

As far as the logical fallacies, I just did some research for my wiki page, so I feel a bit more confident teaching those. I have found some clips for logical fallacies, which I may use one during class along with a short quiz after to entice active listening. I am hoping maybe someone has some ideas for an activity or game that won't take too much class time or be too challenging to teach how to recognize and avoid/correct logical fallacies in arguments. 

-O

Humor: Life's Great Bandage, Ch. 2

Humor: Life's Great Bandage

We learn a lot of contradictory things as children. You can't talk to strangers, but you can dress in a costume once a year and ask politely for their candy. You can't say bad words, but you can sing the lyrics to horribly offense songs. And, one of the most pervasive, you can't lie, but you can tell someone a white lie to avoid hurting their feelings.

It's a wonder we ever make sense of our world at all. That being said, it is understood that white lies are told, usually to avoid confrontation. Dana Elder's comp tale in Chapter 2 is a terrific example of how although we avoid any and all confrontation like a plague, it is sometimes necessary to enact a positive change. In her example, the student's essay clearly had too many flaws to be considered meaningful writing. If she had followed her current lesson for the class about the compliment sandwich, that student would've suffered academically. This tale notes a few interesting phenomena at play.

First, it challenges the idea that every lesson a teacher attempts to put into action is infallible. Clearly in this example, the theory of the compliment sandwich did not follow through in the practice. Second, it notes that coddling a writer is doing nothing but creating a false sense of skill, which may mean he/she will not continue trying to improve. Elder could've found something to spin into a compliment, but the student's own assertion gave her the confidence to agree that his writing had no real praiseworthy merits and that lying to him would solve nothing. Finally, this experience highlights that sometimes (perhaps more often than not) a student knows where his/her work falls on the spectrum of writing skill. They are merely trying to receive effort credit for work that they know is garbage, but that maybe got them through high school. If Elder had praised this paper, she could've been simply playing into the games of undeserved academic entitlement.

I can relate to this tale in a couple of ways. One, as a tutor in Writing Centers the past three years, I have seen many papers along the spectrum of academic writing. Some were incredibly impressive, others moderately decent, and some horrifyingly broken. I am a firm believer that shame and harsh judgment are the quickest ways to shut down a writer, so I turn to humor. Humor is more useful than the compliment sandwich in that it is often times more sincere. I can ask a student, "Okay, so what are you trying to say here?" and follow it with, "Okay, that's good! But right now it seems generic." Body language plays a huge part in this. It has to say that while I am enthusiastic that they have something worthwhile to say, they have not gotten there yet.

I think Elder is right in saying one of the worst things a teacher can do is lie to a student. College is expensive and time-consuming. We at least owe it to the students to find and hone our personal strategies of creating better writers and thinkers, not just better papers. Because if there's one rule from growing up that wasn't contradictory it is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

-O

"The Reset Button"

September 11, 2014

Walking to the first day of class as a TA was an odd feeling. I am in a liminal space in which I am not completely teacher, but not truly the student in a particular class. I need to get a parking pass. The more than a mile walk here was not horrible, but it was long and took a longer amount of time than anticipated. Once I am able to park on campus, my morning schedule should remain the same but be much less stressful, and I will be able to focus on preparing for the course and being early to class. I felt frazzled and behind today, which is not how I want to feel again. I figured I would be much more tired this morning. I went to bed around 11:00 pm, but my dog just moved in with me yesterday and is still struggling to adjust, so he kept me up last night. Hopefully this gets better and I am able to sleep, however, I actually feel quite awake now. Monday and Tuesday are my busiest days, which is good. I like that the week is frontloaded. 

Today in ENG 103, I went to get chalk for the professor, which made me realize the prep for class goes well beyond lesson plans and even at a large university, professors still have supply difficult and such. I appreciated how the professor went over the vital parts of the syllabus, specifically calling to mind that assignments and readings are due on the dates listed. I will need to keep in mind that my audience is full of freshmen for the future to tailor and anticipate their experiences in college so far and the things they may not understand yet. It may be useful to do some more personal reflection on how I felt as a freshman. I would adjust the first day content slightly in my classroom to define more of the “what is a writer prompt” and I think having memoir based daily journal questions would be a great idea. I would also utilize the “Authors Chair” identity. All in all, it was a great first session. I look forward to learning more from my professor and students in Wednesday’s class on introductions. 

This is the reflection I wrote after my first day in the ENG 103 course I am shadowing. I learned a lot within that first week and have continued to be challenged and encouraged by the students and the methods of the professor I shadow. Something I definitely learned in my first week was that balancing my life as a commuter graduate student on a large campus is much different from living on campus on a small campus as a well known and respected student. I have hit a "reset button" of some kind, starting me back at the beginning to rebuild my credibility inside and outside the classroom. 

Comp Tales 1

"Don't Judge a Book by its Cover"

The first tale of Comp Tales reminded me of the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover." This old saying is around to remind people that what's on the outside is sometimes masking the real greatness of what's on the inside. Even though most people know this maxim, putting it into practice in abstract circumstances, such as human interaction, remains difficult.

The experience with the community college professor both attests to this saying and challenges it. Her initial judgment of J. Johnson revealed a static, rule-hardened professor exercising authority and protocol rather than humanity and dialogue. While the mandates of not missing a certain number of class hours are clearly in place for reasons of educational standards, community building in the classroom, and overall fairness, the professor experiences the side effects of these rigid rules that do not recognize the student as a person first and foremost.

Another important thing revealed in this story is that not only are "bad" students misjudged. "Good" students are also at risk of being labeled in such a way that certain expectations become unfairly attached. McCurry is described as a military-looking "antithesis" of the student who had been in jail. Here we can see the prejudices that exist within the classroom come to light. McCurry's clean cut look and polished shoes put him into a different class than his classmate, the large man with "scarred face and imposing tattoos." McCurry's appearance puts him in a different category than Johnson and a classroom hierarchy is born.

The most telling part of this tale is the professor's feeling that she failed J. Johnson by not allowing him the chance to share his story. This brings up two important things to consider. First, the guilt that is often times inherent in becoming responsible for the future of education. While it's true that each student must put in the effort to earn the grades and succeed, the pressure is also very much on the professor to perform. Second, the narrative style of writing is not taken seriously enough in the academy. When taught well, narrative can be a strong and even foundational mode of exposing students to college level writing. Narrative depends on the basic skills of all writing, such as detail, exposition, coherence, and efficiency. Unfortunately, it is often treated like the throw away, less serious paper of a course, even though in truth it is the backbone of writing.

This Comp Tale reveals problems with negotiating rules and human compassion, classroom prejudice, teachers' guilt, and dismissing the narrative as a useful genre. The saying is to not judge a book by its cover, but the real tragedy is not so much the judging as it is the act of dismissing.