April 28, 2006
Live Blogging My Final SIP Reading and Subequent Eye Gouging
I am pre-reading a SIP before meeting with the student this afternoon, my final SIP to read as the Writing Center Assistant. I am admittedly punchy. The SIP is admittedly rough. Oh boy.
* Disclaimer: this recounting of events is not a slight to the student-author's content or intelligence. It's actually a really interesting paper. The usage of the English language, however, has emerged as a completely autonomous beast, a monster which must be tamed for the sake humanity.
9:15 a.m. Hope springs eternal. Whenever someone says, "I think it's just some small proofreading stuff that needs to be fixed," I believe them. Every time. Foolish.
9:47 a.m.
The older generation's wellbeing could be at stake if there since of community is taken away from them and modern virtual community takes over.
Read quoted sentence five times in an attempt to understand what it meant. Finally realized that "there since" was supposed to be "their sense." Tricky.
10:03 a.m.
In the interpersonal realm technologies have moved interpersonal relationships from face to face relationship with the people who lived or worked close to us, to new electronically mediated relationship were you might never meet or talk face to face and these relationships are with people that could be any were in the world.
I am saving the world one disorientingly clausal sentence at a time.
10:11 a.m.
If you spell "onslaught" as "on slot" there should surely be a Vegas-derived pun floating around as well.
10:37 a.m.
I have jumped to the last ten pages with wild hopes.
10:41 a.m.
I wrote the student a helpful list of words to check for usage. If he were to do a simple "find and replace" for each of these, things might actually be okay.
effecting --> affecting
there --> their
since --> sense
were --> where
use to --> used to
peaces --> pieces
11:00 am.
Inconsistent pronouns are a cruel, cruel trick to play on your reader.
11:06 a.m.
It would be nice if you could just hand a student a jar full of commas and say, "Sprinkle liberally throughout."
11:16 a.m.
It's a little sad when you start reading a sentence and you think you know where it's going and then right when you hit the halfway point some clause gets thrown in there and suddenly it's like you're out in Iowa on Aunt Bessie's pig farm and all the stuff you thought were trees were actually corn or something.
11:20 a.m.
Malapropisms are an error easily forgiven: "We have gone from communities where everyone knew everyone's caricature..."
11:32 a.m.
One of my English Comp students just came by to drop of his portfolio. He was wearing seersucker pants and a t-shirt. This made me happy.
11:39 a.m.
Modernism fell because the Enlightenment started questioning it or modernism fell when the Enlightenment began being questioned? Semantics can make for such fascinating historiographic ambiguity.
11:48 a.m.
My appointment is in 10 minutes. I shall ignore pages 13-19 and instead regroup mentally. Also, I think the Writing Center should have a punctuation spice rack. A bottle of commas, a bottle of colons, a bottle of semi-colons, and a bottle to collect all the extra exclamation points people toss about.
11:53 a.m.
Oh, okay, just one more quote:
Individual freedomand choices are something that emerges as there is no final authority. These changes to postmodernism have effected the character of space globally, publically, and interpersonally. If a country does not believe in objective truth them you get countries were people are willing to kill other and die for causes that are selfish. We are dealing with that today with the terrorist countries.
1:38 p.m.
Reasonably successful conference. Student is under strict orders to lock himself in the bathroom and read pages 13-19 aloud. Grading of 22 freshmen composition portfolios may now commence. Adieu.
Posted by elissa at 01:47 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
April 25, 2006
Typecast
One unexpected side effect of working in the Writing Center this year has been the development of an uncanny ability to strongly associate students with their papers. I may not always remember their name, but I will definitely remember the paper. This results in strange, haphazard conceptions of people that I really do not know but may occasionally see again on campus.
That guy. Likes Halo, doesn't like Hume.
Her. Bad experience with spinach as a child.
Oh, him. Doesn't agree with the war in Iraq. Knows how to assemble an electric guitar.
She's from Alabama and is a big Auburn fan.
She likes The Fray.
She worked in a bakery.
He disagrees with Beccaria.
She is a kinesthetic learner.
He thinks that the Netherlands stand a good chance of winning the World Cup.
I'm sure this will come in useful at some point in my life.
Posted by elissa at 04:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 21, 2006
SIP Count
I. Definitions
SIP - Stands for "Senior Integration Paper/Project." Usually a twenty to forty page research paper, meant to be the capstone of your academic career at Covenant College. No SIP means no diploma. Given the gravity of the situation, seniors often put their SIPs off until the last possible moment.
Elissa - SIP deconstructor extraordinaire. Favorite question: "So... did you have a thesis in this?"
II. Statistics
Number of SIPs read this semester: 16
Most Oft-Represented Department: Tie. Psychology and Business.
Longest Straight Stint Reading a SIP: Consecutively, three hours. Cumulatively, still counting.
III. Evaluation
The Phrase That Strikes Fear: "I think it's just grammar stuff that needs to be fixed." Always a foreshadowing of worse things to come.
Newest Pet Peeve in Scholarly Papers: ending paragraphs with block quotes.
Most Underused Punctuation Mark: the semi-colon.
Most Ill-used Punctuation Mark: the semi-colon.
Biggest Lesson: never underestimate the organizational power of colored pens.
Posted by elissa at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 05, 2006
Tipsy
I've been rewriting other people's sentences and lack the energy to form my own. Bah. It's time to go look at and talk about some art. With theology sprinkles. In Wheaton. Huzzah.
Posted by elissa at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 15, 2006
Writing Center Adverts, IV
SIP-writers, before senioritis reduces you to a lump of academic dormancy, ensure your imminent departure! Come to the Writing Center for help with development, organization, clarity, syntax, and format. Tutors are specially trained to help you locate that pesky "thesis" everyone keeps talking about.
But don't wait too long. Slots are filling up quickly! Come by today to put your name on our master SIP calendar.
The Writing Center.
Sanderson 119.
"Real world" through here.
Posted by elissa at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 21, 2006
Dear Professor, Let's Be Buds
An article in the Times reports the strange effect that e-mail is having on student-professor relationships. E-mail has happily enabled greater professor accessibility, but many students are inadvertently abusing the tool. Somehow, students now think that sending off a quick "I have a hangover, so I'm not coming to class" electronic missive is an acceptable practice and worthy of clemency. Other students deluge professors with bizarre and inane questions or are embolded to complain petulantly about grades. Often, the tone is casual, presumptuous, or downright imperative. To me, this says more about a cultural mindset than technology.
Still, this article offers strange comfort to me. At least now I need not blame the contents of my inbox solely on my age or adjunct/assistant status. After all, if a professor at UC Davis can receive this from a student:
Should I buy a binder or a subject notebook? Since I'm a freshman, I'm not sure how to shop for school supplies. Would you let me know your recommendations? Thank you!
...then I need not be too distressed by similar notes:
I'm not sure what to put on the top of my paper. Am I supposed to put my name up there? Or do I need to make a cover page? What should go on that? Thanks.
At least, that's what I'll tell myself.
Posted by elissa at 04:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 25, 2006
My Anticipated Reading List
Despite missing a day at work due to a hateful stomach bug, I'm almost through with my first round of conferences with Freshmen Composition students. While I do enjoy lecturing, the opportunity to discuss ideas on an individual basis is especially fun for me. It's exciting to sit down with a scribbled freewrite and then pull out some valuable idea that can be expanded into an engaging piece of academic prose; I feel like we're pulling rabbits out of hats.
A digression-filled draft about a community peanut festival has now been redirected to an exploration of being both an "insider" and an "outsider" in a small southern town. Sprawling musings on soccer, cooking, and art have are now contributing to a thoughtful piece on perfectionism and quitting. I'll be reading essays on performance anxiety, meeting a spouse on the internet, running as an emotional vent, the juxtapositions of brokenness and prosperity in a Nebraskan town, the unexpected difficulties of being a first semester freshmen, slowly growing apart from a longtime roommate, developing a character as an actress, wrestling with the effects of living cross-culturally... and more. One student told me, "I didn't think I was smart enough to write about something like that." "It was your idea to start with," I replied. And it was true. She had just needed help recognizing the value of something already embedded in her own experience.
In my weakened state, I'm tempted to slide off into trite-but-raputurous exclamations like, "It will all be worth it if even one student learns to be a little more self-reflective." We'll hold off the party until I have twenty-two writing portfolios in my possession. But, right now, I want these ideas to become coherent, engaging, confident writing that appeals to varied audiences. I'm excited to show students how they can set their own ideas and stories into broader, more meaningful contexts. And I am very glad, indeed, that I (still) have this job.
Posted by elissa at 02:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 13, 2005
An Open Letter to Freshmen
Allow me to wax sage and professorial for a moment.
Dear Freshmen,
I'm an old woman now, practically in my mid-twenties. I graduated a year and a half ago, and I was reading Dr. Seuss the year that most of you were born. But you, you are just ending your first semester as a Covenant College student. You have been here for almost 100 days. You have shared a bathroom with one, three, five, or twenty other people. You have eaten several hundred meals in the Great Hall; a few of them have probably consisted solely of cereal. You have turned in scores of chapel attendance sheets, written papers, taken tests, not slept and then overslept, gone bowling, and met people in the lunch line. I presume hopefully that most of you have also managed to accomplish this without the assistance of nicotine or alcohol.
For some of you, the thought of spending three and a half more years here is a delightful prospect. You know 70% of your classmates, you think your RA is swell, and occasionally that cute kid from across the room talks to you. Others of you, however, are already calculating arguments and tales of woe to convince your parents that calling Covenant "home" for seven more semesters is a horrible plan. You might be right, of course, but I can't help but wonder if, perhaps, you may be rushing things. Basing your expectations for the rest of your college career solely off of first semester experiences is hardly permissible.
As far as I'm concerned, everyone should have the option of designating their first college semester a wash, an enterprise that yields neither marked gain nor loss.
Continue reading "An Open Letter to Freshmen"
Posted by elissa at 09:36 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 30, 2005
The Perils of the English Language
I like my international Basic Writers:
"We need to be aware, and then we can have a good experiment with a lot of boys!"
Fatal flaw: "experiment" and "experience" look awfully similar
"I find this work to be pertinent to what I saw as a child in Haiti."
Me: Wow, "pertinent." Good word.
Student: It is from French. I use it every time I can because I am sure of what it means.
"We all sat around the fire, singing, talking, and having good intercourse."
Fatal flaw: if you look up the Russian word for "fellowship" in the dictionary, the given English equivalent is "intercourse"
But what I like even more is that they laugh at these mistakes themselves...and then keep trying.
Posted by elissa at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
This Week, I've Read:
- a sobering account of participating in a Haitian political demonstration that turned deadly
- an explanation of why a high school basketball team was like a family
- a presentation of biblical and scientific arguments against abortion
- an outline of a student's uber-laid back life philosophy
- an introduction to the ethnic and religious tensions in Kazakhstan
- a preliminary brainstorm on whether or not guys and girls can be "just friends"
- an evaluative essay on the cancer treatment center where the author was a patient
- a harrowing tale of a summer camp mishap and ensuing identity crisis
- a gentle tale of longing for a friend's salvation
- a primer on escaping cultural missteps in England
- a review of a 12 Stones album
- two, slightly contradictory, reviews of Cibo! restaurant downtown
- a review of the Shane and Shane album Upstairs
- a freewrite on the Nigerian obsession with cellphones that rambled on in delicious detail
- the dreaded paper on Ordinary Men for Follett's history class
- an exploration of the legality and ethics of the payday loan industry
- an opinion on the projected sustainability of the dollar as the dominant currency
- a critical review of the marketing strategy and business practices of Abercrombie & Fitch
- a comparison of the merits of online trading and long-term investing
- my own historiography paper on Heinrich Wolfflin which is being revised for grad school applications
And now, I must say, every single one of those papers are less ambiguous, more concrete, or more coherent. Some of them are even all three.
I like my job.
Posted by elissa at 03:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2005
In Which My Attempt to Appear Hip Falls Flat (or) Decemberists, Come Quickly!
Towards the end of our discussion of Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener," this happened:
Don't you all think that "Bartleby the Scrivener" would make a great name for a Decemberists' album? (I am met with blank stares.) Wait, does anyone even listen to the Decemberists?
Two students saved me from utter despair and total face-loss by raising their hands. I ordered the rest of the class to look up the band as part of their homework. Maybe today I will recommend that they download this and cement myself in their minds as the substitute prof that listened to "weird things."
Oh yes, believe your ears. That's the Decemberists doing a cover of Bjork's "Human Behavior."
(Thanks to Casselculture for the tip)
Posted by elissa at 01:39 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 08, 2005
The First of Many a Student Quote
"Oh, so I am a superwriter!"-- an ESL student after realizing that she had misunderstood the professor and written two drafts instead of the required one
Posted by elissa at 04:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Blessed Chain of Association
Since it would never do for a professor to be too optimistic, I'm trying to maintain some semblance of appropriate cynicism. Still, I can't help but be excited about the things that I'm reading from my Basic Writing folk. It's not that their drafts have exhibited spectacular coherence, correct syntax, or engaging style. They haven't. But, in their freewrites thus far, there have been delightful moments of discovery in the middle of muddle. Stuff -- wonderful, insightful, amazing stuff -- keeps appearing in the most unexpected places. One draft about basketball took a surprising turn towards unpacking a difficult home life. Another freewrite started off discussing the author's prowess at Playstation 2 Madden and ended up talking about being mistakenly pulled over and handcuffed on his way up to Covenant for the first time.
Perhaps part of the appeal lies in just how unpretentious their prose really is. They hand in drafts about racial profiling, voodoo, relationship abuse, and religious riots written in a matter-of-fact tone. It's so clear that they each have *something to say* rather than just an experience to relate. It's so easy to want them to become better writers. And it's so daunting to realize that such improvement is now partly my responsibility. I think I've found a job I love.
Posted by elissa at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2005
Unwanted Expertise
One of the first goals of Basic Writing is to convince students that they will be better writers if they write about an area of expertise. Somehow, the natural flow of information has been oddly and artificially altered in the world of the academic term paper. Only there does information routinely flow from a person who knows less (a freshman Old Testament student) to a person who knows more (a professor with a Ph.D. in Old Testament). I'm hardly calling for the erradication of the "research paper," nor is it an all-encompassing dismissal of students writing standard expository prose on an assigned subject. But, for these kind of freshmen -- students who dread writing because of past failures -- telling them to write an academic paper about something they know well often proves liberating and fascinating.
So, we tell them to make a list. "What are your areas of expertise? Give me five things." The lists from the American students generally tout their athletic backgrounds, their ability to make friends easily, or the ease with which they drive a stick shift. The lists from the international students highlight their knowledge of their homeland's history, culture, or food. There are generally a couple of items that pique my interest on each list, and I encourage the students to write a draft on those unique topics. I'm expecting drafts on everything from untying knots to writing in Chinese.
The last list I received was from a young African man who had arrived at school almost a week late. He handed me his list, scribbled in pencil on a small yellow piece of notebook paper:
- Poverty
- Riots
- Strikes (student and worker)
- Being a TCK
- Being African
I told him he could choose whichever one he wanted.
Posted by elissa at 01:44 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 31, 2005
For William Carlos Williams
-- a "found" poem in the ENG 114 syllabus
Keep reading to see what we're really talking about today...
Continue reading "For William Carlos Williams"
Posted by elissa at 02:56 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
Being a Crayola Color-Namer Always was My Back-up Plan
Somehow -- even though I was home schooled through all my growing-up years, and the legendary euphoria of new back-to-school supplies was thusly limited -- I've always associated the beginning of the school year with a new packet of markers.
Before age 5, I had already developed a fairly sophisticated evaluation and acceptance system for my drawing and writing implements. Crayons did not give me the brilliant, sopping color that my young eyes desired, so I switched my loyalties to markers accordingly. Until age 5 1/2 or 6, the wide tipped "classic color" set was adequate. Then, I discovered, promptly became wildly obsessed with, detail.
Fine tip markers did indeed solve my dilemma over fine facial features and intricate clothing patterns, but they also ushered in a new era of color use. My mom didn't only buy me classic colored fine tips -- she bought me the deluxe set. Suddenly, I had three different blues, two different greens, a light pink, a magenta, and a gray at my disposal! The entire world opened up to my mark-making and I scribbled at it eagerly. The best days were ones where layer after layer of marker rubbed off onto the flat cushion of my sweaty fist, creating a shimmering purple-green-blue-yellow-red-black bruise of ink. It was an artist's mark, and I loved it.
Every once in a while, I would be given a set of "special edition" Crayola wide tip markers. The "Easter" collection. The "Jungle" collection. The "Tropical" collection. At first, I used those designer colors with thin-lipped stinginess, wanting to make them last as long as possible. But, as my sense of color matured, I at last learned to appreciate the subtleties provided by drying-out markers. The "gray" marker really usually was too dark for coloring elephants and castles. An old black marker, that left bits of felt streaking in its wake, was much more effective. Plus, it had a built-in texture simulator.
The semester began today. I'm teaching now, and I haven't owned a good set of markers since the middle of high school. But all of a sudden I'm wondering if having a fine-tipped, deluxe-colored bouquet of markers is what I need to get this year started right.
Posted by elissa at 03:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 17, 2005
You Can Provide Covenant Students With an Alternative Viewpoint!
Let us briefly return to those hallowed halls of learning: the English department.
Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" (1894) is a compact, pithy tale that takes a couple of minutes to read but can provide disproportionate amounts of discussion. In my brief stint as a substitute English professor, this story is supposed to be used, among other things, as an example of how a reader's values and assumptions -- in this case, attitudes towards marriage -- insert themselves into literary interpretation.
While this is a true and helpful observation to make, a problem arises when you realize that the Covenant classroom will be fairly homogeneous: young, unmarried Christians, mostly white, and many of whom share strong and specific ideas about marriage.
If you care at all about broadening young minds -- or at least satisfying my own curiousity -- read the story and tell me this: did you find Mrs. Mallard to be a sympathetic character? Is she a selfish monster or a victim of society? Are those two views mutually exclusive? How -- if at all -- do you think your own age, gender, experience, religion, social background, etc. influences your response?
Even if you don't respond, you should still read. Chopin's a wonderful writer, with a distinctive voice and viewpoint that did not garner acceptance, much less praise, until decades after her death. Two minutes to read a story that will introduce you to an important proto-feminist? This is a high return of culture points.
Posted by elissa at 11:14 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack