OK, I know. I've not exactly been the poster child of blogger profligacy.
But I dunno, things aren't very exciting. I entered all my final grades today, so that's done. Then I wrapped presents at the homeless shelter for two hours. Might I add that I had a blast? I didn't really talk to anyone, just totally focused on picking out and wrapping the presents. The only bad part was that all the presents for girls were HYPER pink, and I couldn't bear to give anyone a Barbie or Barbieclone. This might prompt me to buy some cool books or something to donate next year--I mean, not all young females are in love with make-up and the prospect of giant boobs.
Leaving on Friday for Northern City, followed a few days later by The Great Drive East.
The cats are really snuggly lately. You can't sit down without a Priss creeping into your lap.
We had four parties at our house last week--two final seminar parties (TM's seminar met right before mine, so there was some awkward overlap where my students had to stand around the kitchen with me while I made coffee), a party for the Philosophy and Religion majors, and then a party for our friends and ALL THEIR MILLION KIDS on Sunday night. Good lord. I didn't actually expect all the small noisy people to show up, but there they were. There was a frenzy of coloring (and, apparently, almond-spitting) in the upstairs guest room/attic, then everyone was gone. It was a fun party, though.
Erm...anything else? I don't think so. See? I told you I had nothing much to say.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Hold on a sec.
OK, so one of the arguments that's often trotted out when debating the merits of pumping money into athletics (at a very low-budget, D3, not-at-all-athletically-accomplished college), excusing students who are struggling with their courses from classes to play sports, and admitting patently unprepared students to the college so that they can play football for a year before dropping out.... Um, let me start over. One of the arguments that's often trotted out when debating the merits of the three above-cited things is that college sports brings in money. Alumni like to come back for Homecoming, and having a successful football (or, I suppose, baseball or soccer or softball) team is likely to get them to chip in a few bucks.
Setting aside for the moment that, at Field, this clearly does not work (our alums love the College but our alumni giving is in the neighborhood of 15%), what usually happens when this argument is raised is that we then begin discussing whether that works given the poverty of our teams, how much alumni actually give, whether we're abiding by the rules of D3 recruiting, etc.
But tonight it occurred to me that this rationale is patently unethical.
If we're talking about the weak students here, and not the ones who can successfully balance academics and athletics--and we are talking about them, because this is my blog--then what we're saying is that it's OK to sucker them into coming to a school for which they are not prepared, getting them to shell out a semester's or a year's worth of tuition, and then depriving them of sufficient academic support by requiring them to attend a battery of practices, weight-training sessions, and games at the (occasional) expense of class attendance and (frequent) expense of study time, all in the service of fundraising.
?
In what way is this not exploitation?
Setting aside for the moment that, at Field, this clearly does not work (our alums love the College but our alumni giving is in the neighborhood of 15%), what usually happens when this argument is raised is that we then begin discussing whether that works given the poverty of our teams, how much alumni actually give, whether we're abiding by the rules of D3 recruiting, etc.
But tonight it occurred to me that this rationale is patently unethical.
If we're talking about the weak students here, and not the ones who can successfully balance academics and athletics--and we are talking about them, because this is my blog--then what we're saying is that it's OK to sucker them into coming to a school for which they are not prepared, getting them to shell out a semester's or a year's worth of tuition, and then depriving them of sufficient academic support by requiring them to attend a battery of practices, weight-training sessions, and games at the (occasional) expense of class attendance and (frequent) expense of study time, all in the service of fundraising.
?
In what way is this not exploitation?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
The little-known secret of Composition courses
....
..
.
..
nothing
works.
I hope, I only hope, that I am speaking too soon. There is still one chance for my students to redeem themselves this semester.
But oh, God, if I could physically insert the drive to cite sources into their heads, then maybe we'd get somewhere.
Does this happen to you? Do you find yourself becoming obsessed with some one thing, some single obvious thing that 80% of your students simply won't do? Like cite their sources? In a research paper???? I can't think of anything else. It's practically all I read for anymore.
OK. I will stop. I've been raging about this for two weeks now (6 conference days in 10 days, yes indeedy, that'll make you nuts). And tonight I made the mistake of figuring out that I spend about 200 hours a semester (or thereabouts; this was a highly unscientific calculation) working on comp when I teach two sections of it, as I normally do; that's five full work-weeks. And really, I'd be cool with that, if I honestly felt that it resulted in significantly improved writing. But I don't. And I'm frustrated.
Or maybe it does work, and they're all learning, but I just can't see it. Maybe. And maybe they'll continue to develop in the directions I've pointed them long after this semester ends.
The thing is, when I meet with them one-on-one, my frustration fades and I want so badly for them to get it, to succeed, to write kick-ass papers and do really really well. And I hate to hand them Ds and Fs. But love can't make them write any better, no it can't. And neither, apparently, can the textbook, multi-stage assignments, in-class discussion, group work, endless activities, feedback on a neverending series of papers, peer workshops, individual instruction, email reminders, checklists, or anything else I can come up with.
Sigh. Oh well. I'm off tomorrow night for Thanksgiving with the in-laws, and my computer will be staying home. Have a nice week, all.
..
.
..
nothing
works.
I hope, I only hope, that I am speaking too soon. There is still one chance for my students to redeem themselves this semester.
But oh, God, if I could physically insert the drive to cite sources into their heads, then maybe we'd get somewhere.
Does this happen to you? Do you find yourself becoming obsessed with some one thing, some single obvious thing that 80% of your students simply won't do? Like cite their sources? In a research paper???? I can't think of anything else. It's practically all I read for anymore.
OK. I will stop. I've been raging about this for two weeks now (6 conference days in 10 days, yes indeedy, that'll make you nuts). And tonight I made the mistake of figuring out that I spend about 200 hours a semester (or thereabouts; this was a highly unscientific calculation) working on comp when I teach two sections of it, as I normally do; that's five full work-weeks. And really, I'd be cool with that, if I honestly felt that it resulted in significantly improved writing. But I don't. And I'm frustrated.
Or maybe it does work, and they're all learning, but I just can't see it. Maybe. And maybe they'll continue to develop in the directions I've pointed them long after this semester ends.
The thing is, when I meet with them one-on-one, my frustration fades and I want so badly for them to get it, to succeed, to write kick-ass papers and do really really well. And I hate to hand them Ds and Fs. But love can't make them write any better, no it can't. And neither, apparently, can the textbook, multi-stage assignments, in-class discussion, group work, endless activities, feedback on a neverending series of papers, peer workshops, individual instruction, email reminders, checklists, or anything else I can come up with.
Sigh. Oh well. I'm off tomorrow night for Thanksgiving with the in-laws, and my computer will be staying home. Have a nice week, all.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Do I have time for any of this? Why no, I do not!
Nor do I have the patience!
Does anyone else simply lose patience at about this point in the semester? Ooh, I have been a Cold Bitch to my comp students this week, and have felt absolutely no remorse. (In fairness, I was only a Cold Bitch to about three or four of them, and they were being singularly annoying, in their various ways.) But oh! The papers I am grading! They are atrocious! My comp-teaching colleagues and I have decided to truly Uphold Standards this semester, and I am--disturbingly, weirdly--reveling in giving Fs and Ds to the truly F- and D-deserving papers. Normally I agonize. Am I being mean? She tried!! It's not his fault that he can't write a sentence!! But this time, I think: Can I genuinely pass this student on to a colleague with my writerly stamp of approval? Why no, I cannot!
It helps, I'm finding, to have some clear guidelines. E.g., use 5 or more sources, at least 3 of which must be books or peer-reviewed articles. So when a student uses 5 newspaper articles or websites, boom! No! Fail! (Or a seriously lowered grade.) When a 5-7 page research paper has 3 citations in it, total, wham! Demotion! It's all so shockingly...easy.
The thing is, we've spent--in one way or another--six weeks on these damn papers, including three or four peer workshops and two conferences with me. I've told them what to do. I've told them that you can't write a good research paper if you write it first and then go looking for "stats" to support it. (How I loathe "stats," and "facts," too, for that matter.) The good thing here is that, while this paper is worth 20% of their grades, they now need to write a new research paper on the same topic, but directed towards a different audience--and this will also be worth 20% of their grades. So they can fail this one and, if they work their asses off, maybe redeem themselves next time.
Tomorrow, therefore, we will not discuss the reading (which is on style, and I don't much like the chapter anyway, as it tells students to write in their own voices and not try to sound more formal--well, that's a little unfair, but it does say that, and frankly writing too formally is not a problem that besets the majority of my froshes). We will, instead, discuss Why Passing Composition Is Important, and Why Blowing Off This Course Is A Huge Mistake. I actually have some good thoughts on this, I think. See, they might know, in their hearts, that they can do research. But my responsibility is to ensure that they can do research, and so, if they don't show me that they can do it, they can't pass. Easy! We will then Review The Goals Of The Course (which include things like, "Appropriately use MLA or APA citation style"--really difficult, people, and we did spend, what, two or three weeks on this? Lordy). And then--then!--I will give them an exam. Yes, a surprise composition exam! It is genius. It will ask them to do things like cite, and create a topic sentence, and use signal phrases appropriately. It will ask them what a research-driven paper is. And, at the end, it will ask them to please tell me what it is that they're struggling with, and where they'd like more instruction. For ultimately the exam is an assessment tool, even as it is also there to scare them into giving one little damn about their next papers.
Oh, and in the meantime, one of my heart-monitor reports alarmed somebody who contacted my electrophysiologist, and starting tonight I will need to take a twice-daily heart medication "to get things under control." Dudes, my heart has pounded away since I was born, but okay, whatever. I don't mind. It's only until the surgery. The downside, though? The medication causes fatigue. And man, I have me some fatigue. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
(Otherwise, all is well on the Mihi front, I promise.)
Does anyone else simply lose patience at about this point in the semester? Ooh, I have been a Cold Bitch to my comp students this week, and have felt absolutely no remorse. (In fairness, I was only a Cold Bitch to about three or four of them, and they were being singularly annoying, in their various ways.) But oh! The papers I am grading! They are atrocious! My comp-teaching colleagues and I have decided to truly Uphold Standards this semester, and I am--disturbingly, weirdly--reveling in giving Fs and Ds to the truly F- and D-deserving papers. Normally I agonize. Am I being mean? She tried!! It's not his fault that he can't write a sentence!! But this time, I think: Can I genuinely pass this student on to a colleague with my writerly stamp of approval? Why no, I cannot!
It helps, I'm finding, to have some clear guidelines. E.g., use 5 or more sources, at least 3 of which must be books or peer-reviewed articles. So when a student uses 5 newspaper articles or websites, boom! No! Fail! (Or a seriously lowered grade.) When a 5-7 page research paper has 3 citations in it, total, wham! Demotion! It's all so shockingly...easy.
The thing is, we've spent--in one way or another--six weeks on these damn papers, including three or four peer workshops and two conferences with me. I've told them what to do. I've told them that you can't write a good research paper if you write it first and then go looking for "stats" to support it. (How I loathe "stats," and "facts," too, for that matter.) The good thing here is that, while this paper is worth 20% of their grades, they now need to write a new research paper on the same topic, but directed towards a different audience--and this will also be worth 20% of their grades. So they can fail this one and, if they work their asses off, maybe redeem themselves next time.
Tomorrow, therefore, we will not discuss the reading (which is on style, and I don't much like the chapter anyway, as it tells students to write in their own voices and not try to sound more formal--well, that's a little unfair, but it does say that, and frankly writing too formally is not a problem that besets the majority of my froshes). We will, instead, discuss Why Passing Composition Is Important, and Why Blowing Off This Course Is A Huge Mistake. I actually have some good thoughts on this, I think. See, they might know, in their hearts, that they can do research. But my responsibility is to ensure that they can do research, and so, if they don't show me that they can do it, they can't pass. Easy! We will then Review The Goals Of The Course (which include things like, "Appropriately use MLA or APA citation style"--really difficult, people, and we did spend, what, two or three weeks on this? Lordy). And then--then!--I will give them an exam. Yes, a surprise composition exam! It is genius. It will ask them to do things like cite, and create a topic sentence, and use signal phrases appropriately. It will ask them what a research-driven paper is. And, at the end, it will ask them to please tell me what it is that they're struggling with, and where they'd like more instruction. For ultimately the exam is an assessment tool, even as it is also there to scare them into giving one little damn about their next papers.
Oh, and in the meantime, one of my heart-monitor reports alarmed somebody who contacted my electrophysiologist, and starting tonight I will need to take a twice-daily heart medication "to get things under control." Dudes, my heart has pounded away since I was born, but okay, whatever. I don't mind. It's only until the surgery. The downside, though? The medication causes fatigue. And man, I have me some fatigue. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
(Otherwise, all is well on the Mihi front, I promise.)
Sunday, November 15, 2009
A Few More Notes about the Heart Monitor
I'm half tempted to take pictures of my bare chest to show y'all what I look like all wired up, but that's probably not a good idea.
I look weird. That's sufficient. I have four wires taped to myself--one above and one below each breast, more or less. What's kind of weirder, however, is how I look when I detach the wires to take a shower: like I have snaps up and down my chest. I kind of want to attach other things to them--like mittens, or something (remember mittens with snaps so you wouldn't lose them? Or am I making that up?). I could have all kinds of attachments! Under my shirt! How odd.
I have discovered the best way to wear the box: on a strap around my waist. I can shove it in front of or behind myself if it gets in the way of something. This did cause it to swing around and annoy me quite a bit during yoga, however; from time to time I would stick it into the waistband of my pants, but it would work its way out pretty quickly.
I set it off by accident three times in the first 24 hours, but have been good for the second 24.
As I remarked in my comment on the last post, the most irritating thing is how obsessed I am with the rhythm of my heart. If I concentrate, I can feel it (and if I'm lying on my side, I can feel it without concentrating at all). I need to push a button to register when I have an "event," so I mustn't miss one; after all, I don't have them very often, and these thirty days cannot be a loss. It is distracting to be so consumed with the inner workings of one's body. It is distracting indeed.
Presumably I'll get used to it soon, and can leave behind this dull subject for the sake of returning to the dull subjects of Grading, What I Need To Do, What I Have Done, and Fatigue.
I look weird. That's sufficient. I have four wires taped to myself--one above and one below each breast, more or less. What's kind of weirder, however, is how I look when I detach the wires to take a shower: like I have snaps up and down my chest. I kind of want to attach other things to them--like mittens, or something (remember mittens with snaps so you wouldn't lose them? Or am I making that up?). I could have all kinds of attachments! Under my shirt! How odd.
I have discovered the best way to wear the box: on a strap around my waist. I can shove it in front of or behind myself if it gets in the way of something. This did cause it to swing around and annoy me quite a bit during yoga, however; from time to time I would stick it into the waistband of my pants, but it would work its way out pretty quickly.
I set it off by accident three times in the first 24 hours, but have been good for the second 24.
As I remarked in my comment on the last post, the most irritating thing is how obsessed I am with the rhythm of my heart. If I concentrate, I can feel it (and if I'm lying on my side, I can feel it without concentrating at all). I need to push a button to register when I have an "event," so I mustn't miss one; after all, I don't have them very often, and these thirty days cannot be a loss. It is distracting to be so consumed with the inner workings of one's body. It is distracting indeed.
Presumably I'll get used to it soon, and can leave behind this dull subject for the sake of returning to the dull subjects of Grading, What I Need To Do, What I Have Done, and Fatigue.
Friday, November 13, 2009
It's Official:
I have a heart defect.
Yep. I have Wolf Parkinson White syndrome, which means that there's some kind of extra nerve thing that lets electricity through in the wrong place. It's not uncommon and usually not dangerous, but in a small percentage of cases, it can cause death.
(Minor) surgery is being scheduled. Far more irritating is that I have to wear this ginormous monitor for 30 days. (Aside: "Ginormous" is accepted by Blogger's spellcheck, and yet neither "Blogger's" nor "spellecheck" is. I'm not sure what to make of this.)
I had to race back from the hospital to teach class, ginormous monitor-box strapped to my hip and dangling its ginormous black cord (which snakes up under my shirt to four electrical sensors). So I just told them what the thing was--first, however, making a quip about having been turned into a cyborg, which only partly worked because one student kept asking what "cyborgs" was and seemed to have comfused them with the Borg, and...well, jokes derail, I guess.
Anyway. No need for much sympathy (although my posting about it obviously belies that last statement). This is not a particularly big deal. But I haven't had surgery since I was five, so I'm a little freaked out about, you know, the possibility of DEATH or something. But my doctor has performed 1500 of these without a single fatality, so I can probably shelve those fears.
Feh. Stupid ginormous heart monitor. And you know I don't use stupid made-up words like "ginormous" lightly.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll drag my monitor off to a yoga class and then go to the yarn store, and that will cheer me up quite handily.
Yep. I have Wolf Parkinson White syndrome, which means that there's some kind of extra nerve thing that lets electricity through in the wrong place. It's not uncommon and usually not dangerous, but in a small percentage of cases, it can cause death.
(Minor) surgery is being scheduled. Far more irritating is that I have to wear this ginormous monitor for 30 days. (Aside: "Ginormous" is accepted by Blogger's spellcheck, and yet neither "Blogger's" nor "spellecheck" is. I'm not sure what to make of this.)
I had to race back from the hospital to teach class, ginormous monitor-box strapped to my hip and dangling its ginormous black cord (which snakes up under my shirt to four electrical sensors). So I just told them what the thing was--first, however, making a quip about having been turned into a cyborg, which only partly worked because one student kept asking what "cyborgs" was and seemed to have comfused them with the Borg, and...well, jokes derail, I guess.
Anyway. No need for much sympathy (although my posting about it obviously belies that last statement). This is not a particularly big deal. But I haven't had surgery since I was five, so I'm a little freaked out about, you know, the possibility of DEATH or something. But my doctor has performed 1500 of these without a single fatality, so I can probably shelve those fears.
Feh. Stupid ginormous heart monitor. And you know I don't use stupid made-up words like "ginormous" lightly.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll drag my monitor off to a yoga class and then go to the yarn store, and that will cheer me up quite handily.
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