Grading Portfolios Yet Again

Last stack of portfolios is on my desk... Grading. Final grading.... so exciting to be almost over this term. Just a few big papers left to crank out.... Aghhhhhhhhhhhh

Ending with a Boom/ Beginning with Slow Food

It was the last regular day of 121 for my classes today. We ended on a great note, especially in my 10 am class. They were so intensely interested and interactive, it was tremendous. We laughed and joked and learned. I was totally delighted by the experience and I hope some of them will end up in my 214 class. 

In my own work, I've been pleasantly surprised to find that very little has been done addressing food and ecocriticism. In my brief preliminary search I found only a few links. One of the most interesting was a Call For Papers that I wish I'd found sooner.  Even this however does not make the link between food, ecocriticism and fiction. It seems much more interested in the literature of slow food or locavore movements. 

I am eager to really begin the paper, hopefully my enthusiasm will last. 

I also need to find a copy of "Loving Ourselves Best of All". A brief glance at this article has me pretty excited.

Teach This

Today it became clear that my students don't/didn't understand warrants. The better part of the day was spent explaining warrants in detail and providing a number of exercises to help them get some practice with warrants. It went especially well in my 10am class where students took initiative and began working with other students outside of their groups. In my 8am there was also one remarkable instance of a student working beyond the scope of the assignment to provide a fellow student with some tutoring. 

We also revisited information literacy by discussing context and how context effects rhetoric. We talked about how to search for information about the historical context of an essay, and how to determine if something historically concurrent is also relevant. 

It was a highly productive day in the classroom. 

Outside of the classroom, not so much, but hopefully I can set things right in my own academic house before the week is out.

Yep This Says It ALL: Happy Tagcloud Thursday

GP Once Again

We traversed down to GP again. The roads were foggy in the mountain tops, but otherwise fine.

I've graded most of my student's papers and I admit I've been pretty strict, but I feel as though I coached my heart out and if they failed to follow my lead it's their problem. Next term is business writing, so a whole new adventure. 

I gave my presentation on Salsa music today in Spanish, and took every opportunity to highlight the connections between Africa and Salsa.  I even included clips of Celia Cruz performing in Zaire and images of Santeria and Yemaya. It was nerve-wracking, but fun.

So much more to do...

After the IL Summit

As the readers likely know, Friday was the Information Literacy Summit. I was rather nervous about presenting there but over all it went well. It was interesting to listen in on the conversations about who is responsible for teaching IL in the classrooms. Many people seem to be fine with the job being seated in composition classrooms while others seem to take it as a slight. I think that overall there is a sense that Information Literacy is everyone's business. There are different levels of specificity in IL just like in everything else and those levels can't all be covered in one or two comp. classes. 

I really enjoyed teaching Information Literacy in a more detailed way. If ever I was given the opportunity to co-teach an info lit class I would jump at the chance. Before going to OSU I had seriously considered an MLIS degree. I loved working in libraries and the idea of being a University Librarian is still very appealing, but I love teaching in the classroom so perhaps the Ph.D. seems the most obvious choice.

Who knows...all I know is that I need to focus on the immediate future and this imminent Cather paper... meh

Back to the Grind

Back in Corvallis, and back to school. I am very ready for this term to end despite the fact that I haven't completed my seminar papers yet.

Much work to be done!

Primal Scream

The past few days I have felt like I am just squeaking by. It's conference week so almost every minute of my day has been tightly packed with scheduled events. On top of this the term is winding down so there are many projects with fast approaching due dates.

I managed to get all of my reading done on Death Comes for the Arch-Bishop, which is great, because I actually enjoy this novel, (which means I got to do something I enjoy for a little bit) and I always feel miserable when I fail to complete the reading for Betj's class.  I also tapped into the Cather Studies website and found a bunch of info for my upcoming seminar paper. 

I have a presentation of sorts at the upcoming Information Literacy Summit which I haven't worked on much and will likely spend my weekend trying to tackle. There's also a draft due on Tuesday for my final paper in SJ's class, but I feel pretty much prepared for this.

It's nice out today, lightly overcast, warmish...

Fifteen conferences, two large assignments, and several chapters to go until the week-end

Arggg!

In Light of This

Some of my conferences are frankly depressing. I know that I've done my best as far as instructing these students but many of them are quite transparently trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Many have submitted frankly useless drafts which seem to have been put together in one night. There are few if any quotes, no citation and little organization. It is overwhelming because I am not sure what more I could do.

In light of this let's forget about 121 for a moment....

Here's a little floundering bit of semi-recent poetry


Yaquina Head

Sooth on sooth the sea
tosses and wears away the meanings

in an arching skyward cauldron
combusting ginkgo

A delta leaf vein tremulous
stilled in Holocene weed fields

Rosebay pointing up and up
spike on spike between clusters

Salal all finger-linked haunched
and sea air rounded in great hills

O Tomorrow...

Tomorrow I have a test in Espanol, and my conferences start for paper two. It is rough. I don't really understand my Spanish that well with regards to verb conjugation, and I don't know why, but my students seem awfully confused lately, as though midterms sucked out their brains. My plan is to have them read their essays out loud to me while I take notes or ask questions about what I hear. We'll see how it goes.

In the joys of Sunday, my garden is doing well. We ate fresh strawberries this morning, and there are beans ripening. One sunflower has blossomed and many more are on their way. The peas have blossoms also. Oak leaves are crowding the lettuces, and it is a daily battle fending them off. Soon I'll be planting chard and kale. The herbs look great and the pansies too, some gladiolus soon to bloom. Sweet Oregon!

It's Not About Grades: ILP

I've noticed over the past few days that the ILP grades for my class seem a bit lower than usual. There could be a number of reasons for this. Primarily I am thinking it is a result of these two: 

The ILP itself changed. Different questions, and it seems slightly different point values since last year.

Being taught in class gave students a sense of over-confidence with regard to the timeline. Several of the lower grades in my class are due to a failure to complete all of the assignments.

Either way, grades aren't everything. I tend to stress this fact to my students, and I feel that in this instance it is an appropriate sentiment. This term my students seem to be much more engaged with their topics, they are curious, they want to know. It doesn't feel like I am dragging them along from one assignment to the next. This is great. 

Cold and Confusion

I'm sick...not really sick, just sort of sick, but sick enough to be a little more brain dead than usual. The good news is that I've finished my grading.

Now it's on to drafting up my ideas for a seminar paper on Cather. still reading O Pioneers, which is almost as awesome as The Professor's House. It actually bares many disturbing similarities to a novel I was writing about Nebraska... odd... tis the season for odd...

Grading Portfolios and Such

I've been diligently grading my student's work for the past few days. It is an emotional roller coaster of sorts and I will be glad when it is over. I'm trying to formulate the top five issues I want to address in class. So far I only have issues two that I am sure of addressing.

So far my number one issue is Second Person Voice / Narration.

Despite the fact that I pointed this issue out in class and in conferences, about 80% of the papers I've graded contain some second person. It is making me crazy. I've avoided being overly punitive about it, but I am annoyed.

My second biggest gripe is formatting.

I'm not talking citations or works cited, I am talking about simple format. This includes margins, spacing, and font. I am almost sure that my students are tech savvy enough to figure this stuff out, so why are they choosing not to? Laziness is the only thing I can come up with.

I am weighing the pros and cons of attaching heavy penalties to the violation of these particular issues for paper 2. I don't know... 

Library Day Part 1

Today I held my 121 classes in the Willamette Room of the Valley Library. Today's class was designed to familiarize students with the Library of Congress system, help them figure out where a good book for their paper might be, and determine (at least superficially) if a specific book will be useful for them.

I started the lecture with a brief intro to shelf reading. I drew some "books" on the board and had the students figure out how to order them properly on the shelf. This went reasonably well. I'm sure that not everyone was completely following, but enough of the students seemed to get it, and I am certain that none of them had been exposed to this information before. In fact none of them had ever taken a book out of the Valley Library before.

I followed this lesson with a brief overview of where books are located in Valley. They each brought three call numbers they'd looked up the night before, and wrote down the floor where each book would be located next to their call numbers. I then showed them some floor maps and gave them navigation advice. After this, they were turned loose to hunt up some books for 20-25 minutes.

When they returned with their quarry we went over how to use the table of contents and index to get an idea of how useful a book might be. I assured them that a book can be counted as a source even if only a few pages relate to their paper. This seemed to make them feel some relief. Most of them checked out a book or two.

We will be using those books that they checked out in class on Wednesday. During that class we'll get into MLA for books, and I'll set aside some time to address some more specific questions about Summit and ILL which we touched upon only briefly today.

Lesson of the day...Make it UBER EXPLICIT that the ILP/Paper topic cannot be changed after ILP 2. Some student today was trying to make a case for changing his topic because "there isn't enough information". Frankly I know this is a lie. He doesn't know it's a lie, but it is. Almost any topic imaginable has been considered by enough people to make a suitable 121 Paper 2 topic.

ILP: Day Two

Today we worked on ILP 2 and 3. My morning class attendance was surprisingly sparse, but their involvement in the activity was good. I had them quick write a question or two that they still had about their topic, something that might be a good opening research question. My example was "How does hip-hop promote or negate misogyny?"  They were then instructed, as they are in ILP 2, to come up with some good search keywords from their question. For example "Hip-hop", "misogyny" and perhaps "promote" or "negate". 

When they were done with this I had them get into small groups of 2-4 people and share their questions and keywords with one another. They were supposed to offer any additional or alternative keywords to their partners. Then each group selected one person, preferentially the person having the most difficulty coming up with keywords, to come to the front of the class and share their info. During this part of the exercise the whole class and I offered new keyword possibilities. 

We then talked about how with a list of 5 or more keywords a person might want to use different combos of 2 or 3 words when searching. They seemed to understand what I was getting at, and many seemed interested in the journal databases which is cool.

After all of this activity we talked about formulating multiple research questions and why questions are better than claims of policy. I am not sure that this really got through, but I am strongly hoping that it did. Papers that start out as questions are always more interesting and exciting than those that are born from trying to prove an already held belief. 

Finally we looked at the library catalog and talked about keyword and subject searches. They will be done with the ILP by Wed, and by then we should be well into the research for paper 2.

Yeee Hawww... it's the weekend...  

ILP: Day One

Today we previewed ILP assignment one. It was great fun. 

I've never taught through the ILP before and I am so glad I'm doing it. Usually no matter how much I remind them or update them about the ILP, their reaction always feels vague and sort of disengaged, but the reaction today was for the most part quite different.

I started the day by having them jot down three or more possible ILP topics. They did this and then I collected them for later approval.

I then showed them where to find the assignment online, and let them know how to use the rubric to determine the quality of their answers.  We opened up the ILP itself and I guided them through all of question one. We talked about biases and values, read the Academic Writer and then had a quick write addressing their biases. If they want I imagine they could use this quick write as the answer to question one.

Then we moved on to the other questions.

Number 2 instructs them to go to Wikipedia and look up their topics. In my 8am class I used Manatees as at test topic, then in my 10am I let them shout out a topic. The one I heard loud and clear was Hip-Hop Dance. We Wiki'ed it and looked around. I showed them the discussion and history tabs and we had some fantastic conversation about hip-hop v. rap, and what the relevance of what they learn in Wiki might be to their paper.

We also went over keywords and search terms. This was especially productive in my 10am because the students were amused by "popping and locking" as a potential search term.

Overall I feel really good about the class and the ILP topics they chose. I've gotten back to them all with my input on their topics. There is an amazing array including: woolly mammoths, country music, African languages, hip-hop, sharks, Bigfoot, and more...

Hybridity

I enrolled in a class about Hybrid classrooms that started this week. By Hybrid Classroom I mean a mix of online and in class teaching. This type of teaching is totally my thing. This term I've turned my 121 into a totally hybrid experience.

So far the class has been interesting. I've been able to discus my views on hybrid classrooms with a number of people who seem to be a bit skeptical about online classes and how they might be able to meet the needs of their students through something that seems to appear to be limiting in their view. I've been an online student and I have a different take on it.

In fact I'm getting pretty passionate about the hybrid class, so much so that I'm using this topic as the project for my Comp. Assistant class.

One Big P-Nut Butter Cup and More

So I made cookies yesterday, or should I say one big cookie. Using my powers of experimentation I came up with a giant peanut-buttery-choco cookie of delight.

Today at school it was return to conferences.
Nine students...
Two who brought next to nothing
&
One who didn't really need a conference

Just five more conferences to go, then Wed it's back to the teaching grind whence I'll be experimenting with teaching the Information Literacy Portfolio, and conducting a workshop for any students who bring in revision (if any do).

We'll see...

MAWG Monday

Well, since I need an excuse to blog about the thesis, and by excuse I mean a prompt to keep me on track, I've decided to make this MAWG Monday. The MAWG is a thesis work group that I should have signed up for last year, but foolishly didn't. I'm enrolled in the class this year, and just got done reviewing one of my fellow MA's thesis proposal. It's pretty good, Superman and the American Dream...interesting stuff. 

I never wrote a proposal of this sort, I just kicked my idea around with Peter and went to work. Maybe the proposal would be a clever way of really outlining what I intend to do... Hmm.

Well the MAWG is tonight, I'll be sure to update this post when it's over.

In other news teaching went well today. They're turning in their first drafts on Wed and I am pretty excited about them. I'm even more excited about figuring out how I want to teach through the ILP since I've never done it before. It should be interesting. Hopefully it will help them with not only the ILP but paper 2 as well. We'll see.

For all those who haven't seen me in a while....

Debate

Tonight I made pizza and watched the vice presidential debate. It was ok, but nothing stellar. Biden had better (clearer and more direct) answers but that is not shocking at all.  Palin was "cute" as usual, and less blatantly stupid. Whatever...no fire was ignited in my heart. It's still Obama all the way, no shocker.

In class tomorrow we'll be having a little debate ourselves (really more of a discussion of the readings but I sense some tension). I'm trying to figure out how I want to moderate things. I appreciate Betj's super-positive style, but I have a hard time being positive when I think what someone's saying is foolish. Obviously it won't do to call out WR121 students, but I do want to press them into more critical thinking. We'll see how it goes.