Lord! What fools these mortals be.

Apologies to all of you!


This semester was much more stressful and demanding than I expected it to be.  I took on an additional ENG 201: Research and Applied Writing course (our students needed the additional section), resulting in a semester of manic rushing and grading.  This, among other areas of my life, fell by the wayside.  Never again--I promise!


I do want to share that reading The Hunger Games in my ENG 120: Composition class was a resounding success!  Not only did my students actually read the book (I know this is shocking...I will understand if you need a moment to absorb that...), but they enjoyed it!  We watched the Jennifer Lawrence film version of the book in class during the last week before students' Research Papers and Presentations were due.  Many of my students finished reading The Hunger Games fairly quickly, so I lent them my personal copies of Catching Fire and Mockingjay.


Reading The Hunger Games was an experiment, but it was incredibly successful in a number of ways:

1.  Students read.  (If you teach, you understand that this, in and of itself, is a major accomplishment!)
2.  Students engaged with what they read.  We had debates and in-class discussions about morals, ethics, government involvement in personal life, the value of life, and dozens of other topics.
3.  Students used what they had read to write interested, engaged essays.
4.  Students wanted to read more than the assigned reading.  On any given class day, more than half of my students were ahead of the reading schedule on the syllabus.  By midterm, several students were reading the second and third books in the trilogy, and by the time we met for our final exam, almost half the class had read the entire trilogy--without the promise of any sort of class credit.


I teach two sections of ENG 120 in the Spring, and while one section is definitely going to read The Hunger Games, I am considering assigning Ender's Game in the second section.  With any luck, the film of Ender's Game will make it out of production and into the theaters in 2013!


Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to all--I hope you have a wonderful New Year, if I don't post again until January!

Wait, you tricked me--that wasn't LEARNING, it was fun!

I'm a firm believer in horizontal, all-inclusive learning. This is why I'm teaching The Hunger Games in a Composition class, why my students use Blogs, Wikis and YouTube throughout the semester, why my World Lit. students recognize Spoken Word and a Shakespearean sonnet, and why my ENG 100 students now know who Hans Christian Andersen is.

I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged me to read, took me to the library, and bought me books when they could.  I have a lovely illustrated compilation of some of Hans Christian Andersen's best-known stories, so I knew that Disney's The Little Mermaid was stuff and nonsense even as a child.  My students, however, do not.

As their journal assignment this week (12-15 sentences), my ENG 100 class was to read a fairytale by Andersen, give a short summary, and indicate whether or not they had ever heard anything like it before.  Other than the Little Mermaid, none of my students recognized the tales they read--and some read "The Princess and the Pea"!  I wasn't shocked, but I was gratified that I had introduced them to something new.

While initially the students griped because the stories looked long to them, in the end, they all enjoyed the fairy tales they read.  They learned something new, realized that the fairy tales they thought they knew were rooted in stories that were much older and more sinister, and synthesized what they are learning about narrative in writing with classic literature.  And we all lived happily ever after...

Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out

September 30 - October 6 marks this year's Banned Books Week.

Every year, individuals and groups who believe they know what is best for others challenge books, plays, poetry, short fiction, and art in an attempt to ban the works or restrict them. While this is common practice in many countries--often government or church mandated--in the United States, the right to exercise the freedom to read, view, and hear whatever we want is protected by the First Amendment. The American Library Association (ALA) promotes Banned Book Week every year to highlight works that have been challenged here in the U.S. Banned Books Week involves a number of activities meant to draw attention to censorship, including a "Read-Out" of banned material. Thanks to the internet, the Read-Out has gone digital this year. The Virtual Read-Out has a channel on YouTube. A sincere opponent to censorship, I have encouraged the students in all of my classes this semester to participate in the Read-Out, even if only for our class's benefit. ENG 120 (Composition) is reading The Hunger Games with me this semester--this YA novel has been challenged a number of times already. ENG 201 (Research and Applied Writing) has been challenged to create a video for any challenged or banned work. ENG 262 (World Lit. II) is a poetry and drama class, so students will create Read-Outs of challenged or banned plays and poetry. Even if they don't submit to the Virtual project, students will post them to class blogs so other students can view them.

What are you doing this week?

Teaching in the Era of YouTube

Today I found myself wondering how teachers ever made it through a school year without YouTube. The answer is somewhat fuzzy, and I believe it involved something along the lines of "V H S." (Whatever that is!) I have implemented YouTube videos into two difference courses this week, underscoring concepts in a way that would not otherwise be feasible within the time constraints of the classroom. While I'll deal with the second use later, I must share this first: ENG 262: World Literature II deals with poetry and drama (World Lit. I tackles short stories and the novel). My students have covered closed and open form poetry, rhythm and meter, sound in poetry, and figurative language this semester. I wanted to broaden their concept of poetry, however, so yesterday I introduced them to John Ecko's and Apollinaire's interpretations of concrete (or shape) poetry and to poetry as spoken word. Shape poetry is fun; it's visual and engaging. Almost every American child learned what a "diamante" (diamond-shaped poem) was back in elementary school. Moving on... Spoken word is new-ish on the scene of poetry in some ways, but in many ways it is the oldest form of poetry. Before man began to write, he spoke. Epics like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Beowolf were not the only types of poetry--or even literature--to be passed down orally. Poetry has a long and illustrious history as an oral art. If you mention "spoken word" to some older lit. profs, you may hear scoffing, or note memories of smokey coffee shops, espressos, hash and and snaps flicker across the face of your listener. One never knows the secret lives of professors! To introduce spoken word to my students, I begin with this stereotype: students in berets, black jeans, and turtlenecks, sipping gourmet lattes, smoking lazily, and listening intently to an identical speaker at the focal point of the cafe. Snaps can be heard at the finale of the artist's poem, then silence as each digests what he or she has heard, sipping and smoking all the while. My students laugh; this is a scene they recognize from the movies. Good, I've made a connection. I then note that while this is how some spoken word poetry is still delivered, it has become something of a sensation now in the U.S. Poetry slams begin at school levels and end on live, televised, national events introduced by celebrities. Spoken word poetry has always been largely in the first person, dealing with social commentary, pop culture, or personal angst. Having thus introduced my students to and engaged them with spoken word poetry, I turn to YouTube. As an aside, I note that we will watch, then take a moment to absorb each piece before moving to the next. I have good reasons for these pauses, my class soon realizes. First: Sierra DeMulder's "Paper Dolls" We discussed the role of poetry in feminism (and feminism in poetry) at the beginning of the class session, so this connects with the Sexton and Rich poems we've discussed. Students are visibly affected by young Miss DeMulder's condemnation of society's treatment of women, culminating in a passionate call to raped women not to accept society's handling of their "situation." I cried the first time I saw this, several years ago. I had a difficult time keeping everything together in class. Moving on... Second: Joshua Bennett's and Justin Reilly's collaboration "Women" Again, this ties into the theme of women's role in the world and in poetry. Last: Miles Hodges' "Maskless" This affected some students more than others, but none were entirely unaffected. To hear a young black man talk so nakedly, so unapologetically about his fair skin tone on an island where nearly everyone is black and skin tone still matters--even if no one will admit that out loud--was disturbing at a foundational level for many students. Without YouTube, without immediate access to these young poets and their relevant, striking, evocative works, the discussion of spoken word poetry would have been nearly pointless. Not only did students react to the works, but many of them also understood--for the first time--that poetry IS relevant, not just in the classroom, but to the world, to THEM. This poetry moved my students. I cannot take credit for that, but I can take pleasure in knowing that I opened up the world, just a little bit, more for those twenty-five students. Without YouTube, I could not have done this.

Extra! Extra! Cheating Scandal at Harvard!

"Typo at Root of Cheating Scandal, Letter Reveals" Oh, you thought Harvard students didn't cheat? WRONG. A number of studies right now are dealing with the question of not whether people cheat, buthow they cheat. Everyone, given the opportunity, cheats. The difference lies in the skill with which a person cheats and the magnitude of the situation (ie: copying a multiple choice answer on a quiz from a classmate versus versus insider trading or embezzling money from a company). The question then becomes, how do we minimize cheating--or at the very least, discourage it? If the emphasis in a classroom is actually learning, and not passing or earning grades, the temptation to cheat is lower; however, the u1biquity and popularity of MOOC's have shown that people will cheat even when there is nothing (money, grades) at stake. Signing an honor code is minimally effective for a short time, but not long-term. Must we, as teachers, accept that if a student is going to cheat, plagiarize, or lie, he is going to do it regardless? Have we, as a society, also taught our students that it's okay to cheat--even if one gets caught--especially if one does not get caught? I'd err on the side of HELL YES WE DID! How many corrupt executives, politicians, or other public figures have been caught with their fingers in the proverbial cookie jar or with their metaphoric pants down in 2012 alone? Can we really blame our students for buying into the philosophy that society has taught them, that everyone cheats, so as long as we are smart about it, we can (and should?) cheat, too? Frightening. The last time I cheated was in second grade, when I copied off Alexis M.'s reading quiz. I felt so terrible about it that I admitted it to the teacher. I don't think she even punished me, she could tell my guilty conscience was doing a better job than she could anyway. I learned my lesson, though, and have not cheated on anything academic since. I am a fanatic about proper citations and giving credit every single time it is due. Undoubtedly, I have "cheated" in other ways since, but none that gave me pause like that one did. Am I as bad as my dirty little plagiarizing students? Perhaps I am; I'm sure I've kept my mouth shut as a cashier rang up an item at a sale price when it should have been full-price. Next question: What do we do about it? We are all cheaters! Thoughts?

Publishing and Respect for Culture

Sounds like an odd mix, doesn't it? I spent most of my downtime (if you can call it that) Monday putting the final touches on an article I wrote. "Regional Dialect and Homophones: Teaching Standard English Composition to Thomian-Dialect Speakers" will be published by Claflin University in Summer 2013 in an anthology backed by the Claflin Initiative. Oddly enough, the topic became germane at happy hour last night with fellow UVI employees (not all professors). We were discussing cultural differences on St. Thomas--especially those that create difficulties for our students. One of those is the stigma surrounding mental illness--even so basic as stress or anxiety. Many West Indians believe that only the truly "crazy" seek help for mental concerns, and others believe that we are still in a 1950's time warp when anyone who admits to mental concerns will be given a shot and never seen again. This obviously causes difficulty for advisors, counselors and professors on the college campus. If a student believes that her anxiety or severe stress are normal, or that she must "get over it" on her own, she is quite likely to fail right out of school. Sadly, if that student had spent an hour with a counselor on campus, she might have found some coping strategies and become a more successful student as a result. Mental health, however, is not where my article nudged its way into conversation; rather, a discussion of perception led to some of our observations about how crucial respect is in the society here. Students will not listen to a professor they do not respect, nor will they do much more than show up and sulk through the class, texting or playing Angry Birds (if they aren't flat-out listening to music on their smart phone). One of my challenges--which I addressed in the article--is to teach students how to communicate effectively in Standard English (SE). Most West Indian students (from any island) use a dialect similar to English, but largely without most of the grammar or syntax structures familiar to SE speakers. In order to teach my students effectively, I must first help them to accept that while there is nothing "wrong" with the manner in which they speak, it is not SE; therefore, they must learn to use SE for the academic and business worlds. If a teacher sounds condescending or insulting, however, the students simply won't care--she will already have lost their respect because the students will feel that she disrespected them. Teachers at every level walk thin lines, but at the end of the day, shutting down students with a condescending or sarcastic comment is not going to serve anyone--least of all the students.

Let the Games Begin!

Oh yes, you heard correctly--I am teaching The Hunger Games in English 120: Composition this semester!


I am only teaching one section of ENG 120: Composition this semester, so you'll have the joy of reading about ENG 100: Writing Across the Curriculum (a remedial grammar and writing course), ENG 201: Research & Applied Writing, and ENG 262: World Lit. II (poetry and drama). You may also have to suffer through hearing about my new office mascot--my kitten, Titan. If you teach at a college or university where you cannot bring your pet to work, I sincerely feel sorry for you.


And with that, bring on the students!

TWO "N" Words?

I was reading this article on The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning and feel that it touches on an issue with which nearly all English professors (and even middle and high school level English teachers) deal. "The Trouble with the Other N Word" I am white. My students, upwards of 97%, are not. The U.S. Virgin Islands are historically black. It is fundamentally wrong to describe my students as "African-American." Why? Oh, let's see: 1. Even those born in the "U.S." Virgin Islands (post our $25 million purchase of the islands in 1917) prefer to be designated as "West Indian" (believe it or not, many "Diversity" surveys include this designation as distinct from African-American); 2. Not ALL of my students are from the U.S. Virgin Islands; in fact, many of them are from 'down island,' Puerto Rico, Dominica, Haiti, or Africa; and 3. The U.S. Virgin Islands is a non-voting territory in the U.S. Congress--that means no vote in the electoral college--and are about as different from mainstream U.S. culture as it gets, so no, my students do not self-designate as "African-American." Having said all that...we read Harlem Renaissance literature, as well as Caribbean literature dating from the early 20th century. Both "N" words are used in both of these. The blatantly inappropriate "N" word (if you have to ask which one that is...) is used by West Indians just as alternately negative and colloquial as it is by mainstream African-Americans (listen to any hip-hop or rap radio station if you don't believe me). Again, let me remind you: I am white. This puts me in a unique position. First, you must realize that I am the minority here--at the University and on St. Thomas. Second, as a professor, I believe that my role is to open up my students to different worldviews--this is not the same as blatantly insulting them. This creates an interesting cultural paradox for me: My students (once they get to know me) trust me to be honest with them. AT. ALL. TIMES. This is a promise I make to them on the first day of class, every semester. I also promise my students that they will not offend me, and while I will not intentionally offend anyone during the duration of the course, I will apologize once and only once in the event I do so unintentionally: "Sorry" (and that's all you get). Even in my composition courses without literature components, we discuss topics that are racially, culturally, spiritually and politically sensitive. (After all, isn't that what college is for--to learn about others' points of view and the way the world works?) I have not asked my students for their thoughts on the current debate over whether to censor the "N-word" out of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn , but a senior advisee from last year did bring it up with me while she was reading it in a capstone Humanities seminar. She has family ties in the Caribbean, but has also lived in a number of places throughout the contiguous U.S. and will be moving back stateside to work on her Master's (so proud!). She was bothered by the use of the "n-word," but when we talked about it, she eventually verbalized that what really bothered her was the ease and innocence with which the word was once tossed about, even in 'polite' society: her discomfort (and no small amount of genuine P.O.'ed-ness) came from the realization that HISTORY, not Mark Twain, was insulting. Once she was able to express this to me (and herself), she grew pensive. I asked her what she thought about publishers who wanted to censor the word from the text...and she thought it would be akin to editing history. I have to agree with her. This still leaves me with the question of whether "Negro" is just a thinly-veiled way of saying the BIG "N" word...but unlike the author of the article, I think I will be able to ask my students their opinion, and proceed accordingly.

Fifty Shades of Rubbish

I would just like to put it out there that if I had Fifty Shades of Grey author E. L. James in any of my composition courses, she would maybe squeak by with a C-. People, we need to stop reading trash! Just because it becomes a "Best Seller" (which only really means that the publisher managed to pre-sell X amount of books to major retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble), Oprah likes it, Dr. Oz likes it, or a friend read it and "like, totally LOOOOOVED" it does NOT mean it is worth the time it takes to suffer through it! Perhaps the moral of this story is that we need better erotica authors, although I tend to think that it's really just that the book industry is going to pot and publishing idiots.

The Anatomy of a Plagiarist

There is more than one way to plagiarize. Did you know that?

The simplest method of plagiarism (and, in my opinion, the dumbest) is simply to copy and paste an essay or article in its entirety. When students go this route, they often neglect to correct minor errors like font differences or embedded links. Slightly more advanced plagiarism involves copying and pasting key sections of essays or articles from more than one site. One of the reasons these plagiarizers are inevitably caught is the lack of transitions, font differences, or complete and utter lack of coherence in the final essay product. The most blatant and unforgivable plagiarism is of the sort that involves an essay mill or a student paying another writer for an essay. A professor who is paying attention and has seen her student's writing style before should recognize fairly readily that the work is not her student's. The (pardon my colloquialism) dumbest form of plagiarism is when a student copies and pastes material, then cites the material either in the Works Cited or with an in-text citation. Citing material does NOT negate copying and pasting. If the materials is an exact quote, it MUST be in quotations and properly cited; otherwise, this is just more plagiarism. Students who "accidentally" plagiarize do not do so intentionally, but still ought to re-do any work in which they made the mistake so as to learn how to avoid even the accidental sort of plagiarism in the future. Bottom Line: if YOU didn't write it, you MUST cite it!

Summertime is here again...

Spring 2012 ended with the predictable, although nonetheless depressing, rash of students who thought plagiarism would help them finish their work. Oh, how so very very wrong they were! Several English 120 students failed major course assignments because they copied and pasted material from websites. One failed the course because she copied and pasted in both her last essay, and her research paper. She plagiarized from essay mills, by the way, and everything she copied had terrible grammar errors and made little to no sense. Two World Literature students attempted to cheat on their final exam and earned big, fat zeroes for their efforts. One World Literature student copied and pasted the vast majority of her essay on Hamlet. I noticed. She earned a zero for the paper. Summer sessions means I am only teaching one course, Monday through Thursday, from 3:20-5:20pm. During Summer I, I am teaching English 120, and English 201 (Research and Applied Writing--which I teach as a gender studies course) in Summer II. One student already approached me to tell me that this is her fourth time taking ENG 120... I am still not lecturing, but I also need to request a classroom change, as my class is currently in a VC (video conference) room, and does not have a big white board. For all my technology use, I still need to be able to write on the board! The summer will continue my efforts to engage and teach without "lectures." I've instructed my students to stop me from talking if I've been teaching, uninterrupted, for more than 8 minutes. We are using more discussion, small group and partner work, Socratic method, and interactive media this semester to keep the "lecture" out of the classroom...more to follow soon.

Not Quite Composition

I am teaching Hamlet in my ENG 262: World Lit. II (Poetry & Drama) course right now. We are in Act II, and while looking for "modern English-friendly" resources for my students, I stumbled upon this hilarious re-working of the play.

I also found a few riotous Youtube videos on Hamlet, but they are mostly funny because I know the play and love Shakespeare, so I will only be sharing one or two with my students.

My department chair is sitting in on my ENG 262 class today, so rather than watching a handsome young Mel Gibson terrorize poor Ophelia half-naked (II. i. 75-98), I'm putting together a small-group activity focusing on imagery and themes in the play.

I'm going to assign a theme to each pair of students (I have 11 in the class) and ask them to find a line in Act II that uses imagery to support the theme. I found a suggestion from a high school teacher to have students write poems using the lines as a starting point, but I doubt that we will have the time.

Article Accepted!

It's time to toot my own horn:

I submitted an article abstract to the the Claflin University Conference on Contemporary English and Language Arts Pedagogy entitled “Regional Dialect and Homophones: Teaching Standard English Composition to Thomian-Dialect Speakers.”

I received an email this morning informing me that my article has been accepted!

I'm honored and excited to be able to contribute.

(I'm also doing a happy dance in my office...with the door closed, so my students don't think I'm even weirder than they already think I am!)

Parallelism

I didn't discover "parallelism" as a grammatical concept until high school. By then, I'd figured it out instinctively, although it certainly helped to be able to name the idea.

My students have never heard of it.

Rather than require them to read a chapter full of grammar-speak, redundant exercises, and narration designed to lull even the most attentive readers to sleep, I sprang parallelism on my Composition classes as an in-class activity.

After covering point-by-point and subject-by-subject organizational patterns for compare/contrast essays (using the thesis statement: Although Hershey's and Godiva chocolate are both well known and time-tested, they differ greatly in their price, availability, and varieties.), I handed out a piece of paper with sentences. The first page was pairs of sentences, the back side just sentences that had problems with parallelism.

I began by asking, "What does it mean to be parallel in geometry?"

Students: "Two lines that will never intersect." I responded by drawing the perfunctory "parallel" lines on the board with hash marks to represent their parallelism. (I resisted the urge to draw two elliptical lines and ask if they were parallel too...Euclid still reigns supreme in University geometry).

"What about parallelism in literature or movies?" Blank stares.

I gave examples of recent films that capitalize on "parallel" storylines, such as New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, explaining that we consider two or more storylines that happen concurrently to be "parallel" until they cross over one another.

Student response, "Ooh, got it."

Me: "But in grammar, parallelism is about matching, patterns and balance." I pointed out that no one effectively learns grammar by reading its rules (duh), and explained that I would read pairs of sentences and I simply wanted them to tell me which of the pair sounded "better."

For example:
In English class, Tashonda learned to read poems critically and to appreciate good prose.
In English class, Tashonda learned to read poems critically and she appreciated good prose.

The class chose the first sentence (clever little darlings), which is correct. I then explained the concept of matching verb tenses (ie: consistency). We moved through 9 examples covering everything from adverbs, adjectives and lists to more verb tenses and direct and indirect pronouns.

As a side note, I teach my kids to simply "finish the sentence" to decide which pronoun is correct.

Example: She is taller than I/me.
If I complete the sentence, it reads either
1. She is taller than I am. or
2. She is taller than me am.

The correct option is clear, although it sounds funny because no one speaks in proper English grammar. As simple as this grammar lesson on parallelism seems, it's by far one of the most successful. My students rarely muff up parallelism after we go over it.

Just in case you haven't smiled today:

Student Feedback on Lectures

The Chronicle gathers some student feedback on lectures in this article supplemented by Youtube videos made by students: "Lecture Fail?".

I plan to ask my students in an evaluation at the end of the semester how they felt about the course throughout the semester, but perhaps I should do an eval now, too?

(By the way, I've been swamped in grading lately, which is not a great excuse for leaving you out here in the cold, vast Internet without my words to guide you, but it is true.)

Fallacious Fallacies

Today was Argument day. Not debate, but argument--the principles of logic and argument.

We started with inductive and deductive reasoning; I asked my students and they supplied me with definitions of each, and I provided the examples. We then moved on to Aristotle's three appeals: pathos, ethos, logos.

I gave them word associations to remember which was which (pathos = sympathy, ethos = ethics, and logos = logic), then we distinguished each from the other with examples. The students provided most of the examples when I asked, although I have some tried and true examples that I threw in as well:

Pathos: Humane Society commercials
Ethos: Every adult who has ever said to my students "Because I'm an adult and you're a kid"

I also shared my cupcake (or ice cream sundae) analogy: Logos is the cupcake itself, ethos is the icing, and pathos should just be some sprinkles on top.

We then moved on to fallacies in argument. I love teaching fallacies--there are just so many great examples to go with each (especially during an election year)!

Today's class was closer to lecture, but truly I made the students tell me most of the material, so rather than talking at them, I had a conversation with my students about what we have experienced to be successful or unsuccessful arguments. We remember conversations, but rarely monologues, I have found.

"Can't I just Google it?"

My ENG 120 students have turned in their research prospectuses (or prospecti?), narrowed their topics and are perfecting their thesis statements. Now, all that remains is to write the outlines and the essays. Oh, that's right--and do the research!

While I am no stickler to "books only" research (I would be a hypocrite!), I am very strict about what constitutes an up-to-date, valid academic source. Wikipedia is so far from my students' minds by the time they start their research, I often wonder if I've brainwashed them. WebMD and other "reputable" sites are always a challenge, however.

When it comes to how recently an article was written/published, I tell my students "If you weren't born when it was written, it's too old!" The exceptions here are primary historical sources or sources for subjects that simply don't change.

When it comes to the author of a source, I warn them, "If you can't figure out who wrote it, run away!"

Most importantly (and most terrifying for those of us who have taught today's students and know how lacking they can be in this department--), I tell my students to use their common sense.

To illustrate just why Wikipedia (sorry, boys!) isn't an academic, verifiable, or valid source, we read "The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia", by Professor Timothy Messer-Kruse in The Chronicle. My students were shocked--and we had some great impromptu vocabulary work, too!

To illustrate why the World Wide Web isn't to be blindly trusted, I sicced this little gem on my students: "The Science of Vampires," courtesy of the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency. Oh? You didn't know FVZA existed? Or that HVV (Human Vampiric Virus) is the cause of Vampirism? Right, because ".org" at the end of a web address does not always (or often, for that matter--most are biased) a valid, useful academic source make !

Amusingly, some of my female students who have been caught up in the throes of Edward and Bella's bliss (and seizure-causing spawning), the slightly more mature True Blood, or any of the other blood-sucking obsessions this generation drools over, actually believed the article--as much as they could, anyhow. One student flat out sighed, looked me in the eye and said, "I want to be a vampire." I maintained my composure...mostly. For the most part, though, my students realized that this article is absurd, albeit entertaining. They acknowledged that it was logically written, but their common sense simply would not allow them to buy into this nonsense about a virus causing vampirism--or the existence of vampirism at all.

Smart kids.

To drive the point home, I introduced my bright little minds to The Flat Earth Society: "The mission of the Flat Earth Society is to promote and initiate discussion of Flat Earth theory as well as archive Flat Earth literature. Our forums act as a venue to encourage free thinking and debate."

I shan't deign to elaborate on that. I will, however, thank Mr. Bill Loughran for corrupting my adolescent mind with the fascinations of Shakespeare, Latin, ancient Greek and Roman history, and ancient Greek, along with thousands of witty barbs for students--all of which I must admit I freely use today--and, the buttercream icing of it all, an introduction to The Flat Earth Society.

And thus concluded my lesson on how not to be an idiot when using the Internet to find sources.

Trust and Honesty

It's part of my philosophy as a college freshman English teacher that sometimes my class needs to play "home room" for my students. Occasionally this takes the form of student griping, but most often, we have discussions about current, pertinent issues.

For example, I assigned ENG 120's third essay today (and it will be written as an out-of-class essay, instead of an in-class essay):


Topic: Nearly everyone uses social networking sites today, but the largest group of users is still college students. While many people consider social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace to be private, the truth is rather the opposite. Many college students are unaware that what they post on their so-called “private” pages is accessible to future possible employers and may cost them a potential job. What material on social websites should users be wary of posting, how will these sites affect students in their future job searches, and could these sites have positive uses as well?

To provide background for this topic, we discuss this article about employers who did not hire candidates because of something on the candidates' social networking site. To further illustrate my point, I ask students to volunteer to allow me to Google them in front of the class. Quite often, when I am able to pull up their Facebook and/or Myspace profiles, students become very nervous--and with good reason; according to the poll, 69% of employers who responded at one time rejected a candidate because of material on his or her social networking profile!

This discussion leads to "best practices" with Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc., and it also leads to questions from my students as to how they can better use their social networking. I use myself as an example, showing them my Twitter handle (@Caribe_prof), my Facebook page (not profile), and LinkedIn profile.

Overall, I think my students appreciate that this assignment is not only interesting, but it also teaches them something they can apply to the real world and may even help them when applying to jobs in the future.

Dirty Little Plagiarists

We haven't even hit Spring Break yet (which starts March 5th, by the way, so you'll know why I'm not blogging!) and I've just given my first 0 for a plagiarized paper. I'm printing out the material from the website this little plagiarist used as I type, so I'm not sure yet just how much he copied and pasted.

Fun fact? I hadn't even run the essay through Safe Assign--didn't have to: he used the word "droll." None of my students know what droll means, I guarantee you. I mean, I finally had to look it up when I was in high school because I had been thinking it meant dreary or boring for years.

Now, to be fair, it was also obvious because the kid started his first body paragraph with the phrase, "To summarize," but still. And this is the type of plagiarism that requires a complete re-write of the paper, not for me to off-his-head: He did actually include the sources in his Works Cited, but not in his paper (in-text citations). This all adds up to plagiarism, but this is the type I use to teach, not to fail. Does that make sense?

I'll let you know if he cries when I tell him I noticed. Some of them do, you know.

Complain? Who? Me? Never...

Ok, so I need to gripe for just a minute here about the complete and utter lack of motivation, resourcefulness and independence in this generation's kids (pick any or all of them from age 5 onward).

NPR just ran a story about "Helicopter Parents" who not only micromanaged every moment of their child's 1-18 years of life, but continued through college and even into the job search and interview processes. Unfortunately, it isn't just the children of these so-called heli-parents who are incapable of sorting life out on their own: it's most of the students today.

I constantly bit my tongue to keep from saying something condescending, rude or sarcastic when students ask me questions that are obvious, that I've answered in the preceding 30 seconds, or are easily answerable with just a little bit of thought and elbow grease. There is such a thing as a stupid question. I once joked that in all of my classrooms, I would like to post a sign saying: "STOP before you ask, and 1. Look around, 2. Ask a Neighbor, or 3. Use Your Resources." So many of the questions students ask me are already written in black and white on the syllabus, could be answered simply by observing the students around them, or simply applying some common sense.

Perhaps because my parents had no patience for dumb, or easily self-answered questions, neither do I. I firmly believe that before asking a question, a person should strive to answer it herself first. If we answer our own questions we actually tend to internalize more of the answer, as opposed to minimally digesting what someone else tells us. Not to mention that answering one's own question saves the rest of the people around her the time it takes to listen to her and the answer. Of course, some questions are genuinely useful to all the members of the learning community, and I LIKE those!

I am home sick today, but thanks to the miracle of Internet and technology, I am still holding class, albeit via Blackboard Learn. I put together a reading quiz on Blackboard that my students are to take within the 50 minutes of class time. Some students emailed me because there was a glitch with the quiz and it was trying to require a password (even though I had initially set it not to need one--apparently I changed the settings while editing the quiz)--fine, good reason to email. However, other students simply emailed me that "I and my classmates could not take the quiz because it required Respondus Lockdown Browser." Not, "Professor G, how do I use Respondus Lockdown Browser?," but "I can't take it." Not one student actually looked in the Course Tools menu to find the Respondus browser (which basically restricts students to Blackboard, so they cannot venture off into Google-land to find answers for the test or quiz).

I fully intend to reward the students who responsibly attempted to take the quiz within the class time, so long as they attempted to take it, and did not just tell me how they were not able to, even though they still had 30 minutes of class time left.

I find that I have a low, if not nonexistent, tolerance for laziness and lack of resourcefulness. Unfortunately, it seems that both are endemic in students right now.

New Discovery: Wordle

Pure. Awesomeness.

More on the "P" Word

During the discussions I had with my last two classes about plagiarism, I asked the small groups of students to discuss whether or not they thought plagiarism ought to be penalized. Most students said yes, but some in each section said no.

The reasoning behind the 'no's' was shoddy, at best, but I made sure each student explained his position clearly before poking holes in the logic. I then gave my classes my side of the plagiarism story:

I worked my rear end off in both my undergraduate and graduate programs, writing every single one of my essays and papers myself, never once "borrowing" or copying someone else's work. I earned my B.A. and M.A. and it pisses me off that there are other people who have that same alphabet soup following their names who achieved their degrees by copying and pasting or buying their work from other students or essay mills. Frankly, I don't think it fair that those imposters made it through their years of "higher education" to "earn" the same diploma I did.

I told my students that I feel the same way about them: students who work hard and honestly earn their grades (even if those grades are C's) should not be bested or even considered equal to students who cheat, plagiarize and fake their way to grades. If I can level the playing field, I will.

This seemed to resonate with my students, including the ones who initially claimed they did not think that plagiarism should be penalized--perhaps because I truly believe it. What are your views on plagiarism?

Gillian Silverman's "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Plagiarism Buster!"

It's a bird, it'a a plane, it's plagiarism buster!
Gillian Silverman.
Newsweek. New York: Jul 15, 2002. Vol. 140, Iss. 3; pg. 12, 1 pgs

Full Text (825 words)
Copyright Newsweek, Incorporated Jul 15, 2002
[Headnote]:
Brandishing a red pen in place of a red cape, I fight to rescue words from literary bandits

AT AROUND THIS TIME EACH year, I transform from mild mannered English professor to take-no-prisoners literary sleuth. The beginnings are fairly undramatic. They usually involve myself, a Starbucks and a large stack of mediocre college-student papers. My mind numbs in response to the parade of hackneyed phrases ("And in conclusion, these books are both very similar and very different... ") when suddenly something catches my eye--a turn of phrase or an extra literary locution. "Paradoxically... ; writes one, "In lieu of an example ... , writes another. My breathing quickens, my heart skips, I reach for the red pen. And behold Plagiarism Buster, armed with a righteous sense of justice that would rival that of any superhero.

Plagiarism is the purloining of ideas or language from another source. It is literary theft, deriving from the Latin plagiarius, meaning kidnapper. Perhaps the dramatic derivation of the word is what attracts the academic set. We spend our days in libraries, classrooms and archives. Given the scant opportunities for stimulation, a kidnapping, literary or otherwise, offers perhaps the only taste of salacious activity we may experience all year.

Maybe this is why the disappointment I feel upon discovering a suspected case of plagiarism is always mixed with a bit of excitement. A plagiarized paper presents itself as an act of aggression, a taunt behind a title page. To ignore the challenge would be worse than irresponsible; it would be cowardly. And so, I begin the chase.
The Web is always a productive place to start. With thousands of sites dedicated to armchair literary criticism, nothing has done more to accommodate paper pilfering. The thing my students don't seem to realize, however, is that as easily as they can steal language from the Web, I can bust them for it. All it takes is an advanced search on Google.com. Plug in any piece of questionable student writing and up pops the very paper from which the phrase originates. I've discovered papers plagiarized from collaborative high-school projects and from essay services like screwschool.com. My personal favorite involved a paper cribbed from an Amazon.com reader's report for the Cliffs Notes of Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener." Really, why take the trouble to cheat directly off the Cliffs Notes when you can simply crib from reviews?
It's not that my students are bad performers. Many of them do outstanding and original work. But on the whole, they are terrible cheaters. They will mooch just as readily from an adolescent chat room as they will from an online academic journal. And they can be sloppy in their deceptions: referencing page numbers to editions other than those we used in class or printing out essays without deleting underlined links. With gaffes like these, the job of Plagiarism Buster is often less than taxing.

This past semester, I discovered eight cases of plagiarism from the Internet, a new record. The confrontations that followed often verged on the comical. One student swore up and down that she had not cheated, and when I pointed to the proof on the computer screen, she looked genuinely perplexed and asked how her essay got there. "That's what I want to know," I told her. "Yeah," she said as if empathizing with my plight, "me too: Another student spent 10 minutes insisting that her brother wrote her paper for her and therefore it was he who was guilty of plagiarism.

Despite their efforts at defense, however, these students generally end up miserable. I fare little better. While I anticipate these confrontations will leave me victorious, they usually just make me depressed. The answer that I most frequently receive to my repeated inquiries of "why?" makes me think that plagiarism comes out of a misplaced effort to please. "You didn't like my last paper," one student told me. "I thought you'd be happier with this one." As if this weren't enough, I know that in the public university where I teach, it is largely my students' overtaxed lives that leave them so vulnerable to the temptations of cheating. They're not off rowing crew instead of writing their literature paper. They're working 12-hour night shifts and caring for elderly parents. In the end, I'm forced to realize that my students are not bad guys; they're just guys trying to get by.

And yet, while empathy for my students is important, in cases of plagiarism it has little educational value. And so I fail them. With compassion, sure, but I fail them nonetheless. And then, feeling more villain than superhero, I head to the movies for some moral clarity.

[Author Affiliation]
SILVERMAN is an assistant professor of English.

The 'P' Word

Today's ENG 120 quiz is as follows:

1. What is plagiarism?
2. What can one do to avoid plagiarism?
3. Who one the Superbowl last night?
4. What is one of the three purposed for which one might write a research paper?

Clearly number 3 was facetious (or was it?), but it did help me to gauge how many of my students were committed to watching a game in which they had no conceivable "hometown" connection. (Remember, we live on a Caribbean island--the only connection my students have to Superbowl XLVI is Giants' defensive tackle Linval Joseph, a St. Croix native).

Without going over the quiz, I asked the class to group itself into pods of three-four people and consider the following:

How do I define plagiarism?
Should there be a penalty for plagiarism? Why or why not?

I suggested that they keep in mind the article by Gillian Silverman entitled, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Plagiarism Buster!" at the beginning of The Confident Writer's Ch. 7: Researching for Writing. (I will post the article in a separate post, for those interested in reading it; I think it is a fairly accurate representation of the process professors go through when dealing with plagiarism).

After discussing the questions, overwhelmingly, students said that if someone plagiarizes "only a little," he or she should not be penalized, and if he or she plagiarizes "like half the paper, or a whole page," he or she should get a zero on the paper. I asked if copying from Wikipedia counted as plagiarism. Begrudgingly, they admitted that yes, this is plagiarism, but perhaps it shouldn't be counted against a student because if he or she is dumb enough to copy from Wikipedia, there is another issue. (I have to say that I was a little attracted to this logic, mostly because I was happy that my students realized that Wikipedia is NOT a valid, reliable, academic source!)

After listening to their side of the story, I explained my thoughts on plagiarism. I explained to them that in most U.S. institutions, one instance of plagiarism is enough for a student to fail a class, and in many, to be expelled from the college or university. At our University, the policy is a bit more lenient, leaving more room for the professor to levy the punishment, but also more wiggle room for the student:


"Penalties: For a first offense, the penalty levied will be at the discretion of the professor and
can include, for example, the options of:

1) Giving a student a zero on the assignment or portion of the assignment in which the event occurred.
2) Giving the student a reduced grade for the assignment and requiring the student to redo the work correctly.
3) Giving the student an “F” in the course. IF the infraction occurs after midterm, and IF the student decides to appeal, an Incomplete (“I”) will be recorded and subsequently changed to an “F” if the appeal is denied.

For a second offense, the penalty will be a grade of “F” in a credit course, or an “NP” in a skills course. If the infraction occurs after midterm, and if the student decides to appeal, an Incomplete (“I”) will be recorded and subsequently changed to an “F” if the appeal is denied.

For any third offense reported to the Office of the Provost, the penalty will be a grade of “F” in the course and suspension from the University for an academic year. The Office of the Provost will notify the Registrar of the suspension.

The penalty for a fourth offense will be dismissal from the University. The Office of the Provost will notify the Registrar of the dismissal, which will then be noted on the student’s academic record."

(The full Academic Integrity Policy is in the PDF of the 2011-2012 Catalog).

I very plainly told my students that I think this is far too lenient: For a first offense, if it is only a few lines, I will require the student to rewrite the essay, but they can only earn a maximum of 60% on the assignment. If the first offense is a significant portion of the paper, they receive a neatly stapled packet from me including their essay, all plagiarized portions highlighted, a hard copy of the appropriate section of the Academic Integrity Policy, and a printed copy of the website from where they plagiarized, all relevant material highlighted--oh, and a zero for the assignment. If it is a major assignment, such as the course research paper, I will fail them for the course. For a second offense, I fail the plagiarist in the course and ask that the infraction be recorded on the student's permanent record. I do not look kindly upon cheaters.

My students took this in stride, doubly so because on the first day of class, I mentioned that I had nine students fail either major course assignments or the courses themselves last semester because the students plagiarized.

We covered all this because today marked the beginning of their research project, which will culminate in a 5-page research paper, complete with properly formatted research prospectus, sentence outline, working bibliography and Works Cited. I wrote the three purposes for writing on the board:

1. Inform
2. Persuade
3. Analyze

and told the students that I am limiting them only to the first two types of writing. We discussed that their audience will reflect either: 1) the people to whom the information will be most valuable and relevant, or 2) the people the student wishes to persuade to his or her argument.

I then asked the students to discuss their interests in their small groups for three minutes, ultimately to attempt to create individual topics of interest. Usually, once students come up with general topics they are interested in, I can group the topics under a few "Focus Groups" (such as technology, entertainment, etc.). This morning's class did not quite turn out this way:



They gave me a few HUGE topics like music, technology and science, and a few smaller topics that could actually be useful, such as "How will the world end?" and "Mysteries/Folktales/Superstitions." I pointed out that "How will the world end?" would be a great informative research paper, so long as the author narrowed her topic down to perhaps a specific theory (ie: the Mayans). Armed with this "aha" moment, I tasked my students with the following for Wednesday's class:

1. Come up with a topic
2. Narrow said topic to something manageable (in the student's eyes) in 5 pages
3. READ the chapters on research (little boogers are getting lazy and we aren't even halfway through the semester!)

Why I love teaching...

I'm grading blog posts for one of my ENG 120 sections right now, and as I'm reading one student's weekly "Discovery" blog (What are you learning in class, how is it affecting you, and how are you applying it in other areas of school/life?), I see that it has two comments. Curious, I opened to read:



I am still chuckling over this, and, I must admit, I even had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard!

(Names of students are blacked out for privacy purposes).

"Mr. Finger Plays Dead" Narrative Outline

I. Introduction:

A. I had the worst dream ever last night!

B. Thesis Statement: I dreamt that all my body parts rebelled against me one by one and left my body, until only Mr. Index Finger was left; then, Mr. Finger killed himself, too.

C. Emphatic Order

II. Topic Sentence: I dreamt that all my body parts could act on their own, and at first it was sort of entertaining.

A. My ears wiggled in time to the music I played in the car—I have never been able to wiggle my ears!

B. My nose nicely explained to my grumbling stomach that my Panini was not quite done yet; it could tell from the smell

C. I did not have to strain my eyes to see at all; they simply focused on what they wanted me to focus on.

III. Topic Sentence: Soon parts were acting in ways that did not work with everyone else, and I started to get worried.

A. My left arm kept reaching over and slapping my right hand, and then the right arm would get upset and try to avenge the right hand and reach over to punch my left arm.

B. My right knee started to live out its fantasy that it was in the Army, pulling up my right leg and foot to march in place.

C. The fingers on my left hand all started to argue and poke at each other, knotting themselves up in a contorted mess.

IV. Topic Sentence: I truly panicked when the bickering parts started excusing themselves and vacating my body!

A. First my left arm detached and dragged itself off, and I watched as all five fingers on the left hand wiggled away.

B. Then my right leg detached and split into the upper leg and foot, all the toes scrambling off to freedom.

C. The other body parts quickly followed, until all that were left together were my eyes and my right index finger.

1. Seeing his predicament, Mr. Index Finger swallowed up the nearest pills, hoping to end his deep loneliness without the other three fingers and thumb.

2. I heard my mouth sigh somewhere off in the distance, an odd sound, as both ears had split up, and then my eyes left me too.

V. Conclusion: Never again will I eat the five-alarm chili on top of my hot wings before bedtime!

"Toksik Love" Narrative Outline

Professor Grantham

ENG 120 – 15710

Outline for “Toksik Love”

January 30, 2012


I. Introduction:

A. She had never thought of herself as violent—and still did not—but some events call for more drastic action than others.

B. Thesis Statement: Lying is never acceptable; cheating is worse than lying, and all cheaters get what they deserve: a cold, lonely end to their miserable lives.

II. Topic Sentence: He promised her that he would always share everything with her, that he would never lie to her; but that was a lie.

A. He worked long hours as an art gallery manager, but she worked from home as an artist.

1. He rarely invited her to any of the shows.

2. She pretended that she was not interested in the art shows.

B. She waited up for him every night, and always made sure he had a plate of dinner waiting for him.

1. She hated to cook.

2. She hated to wait even more.

III. Topic Sentence: One night he didn’t come home at all, and that was when she knew.

A. She waited all night, and finally, at six a.m., she slumped into an exhausted sleep on the couch, the glass of Pinot Noir slipping from her fingers.

1. The tinkle of shattered glass and splash of red wine were not even enough to wake her.

B. He did not even look at her as he stumbled into the bedroom at noon, drunk, his belt still unbuckled.

1. His snores were the symphony she woke to that afternoon.

2. She could smell the sticky sweet stench of another woman’s perfume on him, and it made her want to vomit.

C. Cold as ice, she blindly dressed and waited for him to wake up.

1. She knocked over the Windex while searching for the bleach.

2. The ammonia was already sitting at her workstation, waiting for her, calling for her.

IV. Topic Sentence: The desert is supposed to be hot, but she was so numb and frozen that she was oblivious even to the blistering sun; she was ready.

A. She told him she wanted to photograph him for a series she had in mind.

1. She had the gas mask in hand, the canister already filled.

2. It was to be a commentary on the mass murders of the Middle Eastern dictators.

B. They drove out to the desert in silence, he miserable and morose in his hangover, she simply striving not to allow the tears frozen deep inside her to thaw and run down her cheeks.

1. Her old truck smelled faintly of stale Starbucks and an ancient vanilla car freshener.

2. Her keys clinked in time to her breathing, until they turned off the road; the sand dunes brought the keys to a ringing crescendo.

C. She told him to take off his Van Morrison shirt and moccasins and handed him the gas mask.

1. She was amazed at her own resolve, not even trembling as she handed him the canister and calmly instructed him to walk thirty feet before putting it on.

2. Mechanically, she adjusted the lens on her Nikon, waited for him to put on the mask, and started shooting.

V. Conclusion: Never lie, never cheat, and never believe a man.
A. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Homo-whats?

After finally grading all my ENG 120 students' first essay revisions (that was a mouthful!), I have a better idea of what their grammatical and structural struggles are. All of them struggle with homophones, just like every other batch of students I've had. They also can't seem to let go of "you" or contractions.

(I do not allow students to use contractions in their academic writing, no do I allow them to write in anything but the third person, except for certain assignments).

On Monday I handed out a contractions practice sheet and had the students pair up. I gave them five minutes and they went through about 20 sentences, finding the contraction, putting the apostrophe in the proper place, and then writing out the long-hand of the contraction.

Ex: Shell make a great wife someday, Id wager. She'll, I'd = she will and I would

They had read Chapter 3: Improving Your Paragraph Skills in The Confident Writer, so we also focused on creating topic sentences.

Using the example topic of "College Students on Spring Break," I showed the class how to narrow the topic.

In this case, I narrowed the topic to: College Students Drinking Excessively on Spring Break.

I then created a thesis statement: College students who drink excessively on Spring Break are put themselves in danger of health problems, physical harm, and risky sexual behavior.

As my students already know, the three main points in a thesis statement translate to the topics for the three body paragraphs; in this case:

1. Excessive drinking can cause health problems such as alcohol poisoning in college students.
2. When a person is drunk, his reasoning faculties are impaired and he is more likely to cause physical harm to himself through thoughtless action.
3. Impaired decision-making capability is another side effect of excessive drinking, making students more likely to engage in unprotected or risky sex.

I then split the class into little groups of three people. The groups chose from 6 broad topics (cell phones, reality tv, roommates, addictive behavior, etc.), narrow the topics, create a thesis statement, and at least one topic sentence. Each group then shared what it thought was its best topic/narrow topic/TS/topic sentence set.

This morning in my 10:00am class, instead of a quiz, I handed out a sheet with 18 sentences. Each sentence needed a word that is a homophone and the students had to choose which homophone was correct (Ex: Can you ____ that carrot for me? Pare / Pair / Pear). I allowed the students to work in pairs (no pun intended!) and asked them to come up with 10 'sets' of homophones when they finished the sentences. We then wrote the most unique of the sets of homophones on the board and discussed them.

Ex:
die and dye
cent, scent and sent
way and weight
threw and through
lye and lie
light versus lite (I explained that "lite" is a pop word, as in Miller Lite (c), but that "light" is actually the correct homonym for a light-bulb or something that does not weigh much).
rain and reign
lane and lain
heir and air
boy and buoy (and boi)

and oodles more.

All the world's a stage...

therefore, we need soundtracks!

Today in my ENG 120 classes, we revisited our pictures (either "Mr. Finger Plays Dead" or "Toksik Love"). We talked about proper outlining and the three ways to organize a narrative (Chronological, Emphatic or Spatial Orders). I then told the classes that they would be creating an outline, complete with thesis statement, for their narrative. The students did not have to be true to their groups' original story, but could use it if they liked. While they wrote, I played the songs the students had chosen as "soundtracks" for the images. We had quite a variety, and I was pleased that students had clearly put some thought into their personal narrative for the image and found a song that expressed that narrative.

My Tuesday/Thursday section chose this image:



"Anorexia" Santiago Alvarez

In class today, I also wrote thesis statements for each image, and promised my students that I, too, would write an outline for each narrative. Not only do I feel that this shows my students that I really am qualified to teach them (ie: I can write a thesis statement and outline, too), but also that the task I'm asking of them is doable and, dare I say it?, even enjoyable.

On another note, the power of social networking platforms never ceases to amaze me: I tweeted @ricstultz to let him know that my classes are writing on his artwork, and he tweeted back that he is "honored" to be used in a college classroom. I also tweeted @santixander that we used his photo "Anorexic" today--it's amazing that I'm able to reach out to these artists across the world to let them know that not only are people viewing and appreciating their work, but also that it's being used to teach!

Narrative & Description

Chapter 8 of The Confident Writer is titled "Narration," but deals with description within the chapter. I completely agree with this set-up, as I personally think it's absurd to ask a student to write a "Narrative" without also talking about description.

We spent the first few minutes of class discussing what a "narrative" is, what "dialogue" is and how it can strengthen a narrative, and sensory details (details invoking the five senses--although I include the emotions in this as well). I asked students to write down two or three events in their lives that they thought might make good stories. Then, to illustrate "significance" (why a story matters, both to the writer and to her audience), I asked each student to consider why the story is important.

In my 10:00am section, one student's example was getting lost in a local strip mall. I prodded him for more detail, asking how old he was when this happened (six years old), where he went (an arcade), how he felt (terrified) and if he learned anything from the experience (yes: do not wander away from his mom!). As a class, we then agreed that this story had "significance," as we could all relate to having lost our parents at some point as children.

We continued to use his story while we discussed point-of-view. Now, when I teach point-of-view, I do not just discuss first and third person points-of-view; I also point out that even in the first person, we are able to choose a "voice." For example, the student who got lost could tell his story in the first person as himself now, an eighteen-year-old young man, or as a frightened six-year-old boy.

I then opened a Conceptual Photography site and asked the class as a whole to pick an image. My 10:00am class was uncharacteristically quiet, so I chose for it, but my 1:00pm class was very vocal about its choice.

10:00am

"Toksik Love" by George Granidaru.

1:00pm

"Mr. Finger Plays Dead" by Olivia House.

The students got into groups and then had to develop a narrative to go along with the photo, including as many sensory details as possible. All the groups shared their narratives before the end of class. Not every group actually used sensory details, and some of the narratives were, shall we say, sparse, but I think the point sunk in fairly well. In order to make them include the auditory sense, I tasked all the students with finding a song they thought would be a good soundtrack for the image(s). They will post a link to a file or video in their blogs and we'll listen to some in class on Friday.

Some of the best feedback I've had from students thus far this semester:

"This class goes by so fast!" (Good! That means you aren't bored!)
"Professor, I really enjoy your class." (This warms my heart...)

Books, schmooks

As inevitably happens every semester, a few weeks in, I run into the issue of students who still do not have their textbooks. Ideally, I only have to deal with the handful of students who are waiting on financial aid disbursements, waiting on their next paycheck, or are simply trying to squeak by without buying the text; in reality, the campus Bookstore is nearly as big a problem as the first three.

I have students in both my ENG 120 and ENG 262 classes that do not have textbooks because the Bookstore did not order enough books and is now awaiting secondary shipments. Paired with the constant chatter about E-texts (especially since Apple just threw its bid back in the game), this textbook issue is definitely helping to sway me toward e-texts.

Now, to be clear, I realize that any number of college students simply won't treat an e-book the same as a hard book; think: out of sight, out of mind. I still love, and always will, allergen-creating paper books, but I also read probably half my books on my Ipad now. The beauty of an e-text, as opposed to ordering a book online, is that we only have to wait for an e-text to download (at most this takes maybe 30 minutes, with slow internet and a big file), as opposed to waiting on the packaging process, post office, etc.

But will e-books and e-texts actually replace our paper texts? I think they will definitely start to supplement hard-copy texts, but replace them entirely?

What do you think?

Formula for Awesomeness

I have made it a point to assign Journal topics to my students that are both interesting and useful. I hate writing on boring topics, so I assume my students do as well.

In keeping with this, last semester I began using the artwork of Ric Stultz as one of ENG 120's journals. Students choose a painting, spend some time thinking about it, its meaning, and its impression on them as viewers, and then write about it. Easy peezy and they love his artwork. ::Pats herself on back::

I assign this journal now (3rd week of the semester) while we are rehashing what it means to write a strong thesis statement. I teach thesis statements with the Formula for Awesomeness (Overall Topic + 3 Main Points), and this is when I remind students that their language (or diction) should indicate the essays' purposes: inform, persuade/argue, or analyze.

The exercise that I use in class involves this photograph:



I tell students they have 5 minutes to look at the image (which I project from the overhead projector) and prewrite. They can prewrite however they would like. Some freewrite, others cluster or brainstorm, and many simply write bullet points. I encourage them to talk to their classmates during this time and I feed them thoughts like, "Is this a real place?" "What could this place be?" "Could it be a Photoshopped image?" "Consider a narrative that would take place here."

ENG 120 students will read a chapter on writing a Narrative for Wednesday, so this gives me a good starting point to introduce both Narrative essay-writing and Description.

I then give the students a few more minutes to create thesis statements based on their scribblings. When asked to share, most melt into their seats and suddenly find themselves unable to meet my eyes, but a few brave souls offer up their attempts at thesis statements and either receive the praise of, "Yes! Exactly!" or "Ok, so that would make a great attention-getter at the beginning of your introduction, but it's not a thesis statement." Eventually, my students learn that when they volunteer their work, they get the benefit of individualized help during class time, so they volunteer more.

Only after we have moved through a few thesis statements do I tell them that this image is a photograph of part of the interior of a Public Library in Stockholm, Sweden, home to over 4 million books and designed and built in the 1920's. ::She swoons--all those books!::