December 2008

Ignatius Press is looking for authors for their critical editions.

Dear Literati,

We are looking for critical essays for the next batch of Ignatius Critical Editions. The first six titles have now been published… The third and fourth batches are being edited and we are now ready to accept essays for the fifth batch. The five titles for which we are making this call for papers are as follows:

Romeo and Juliet
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities
Mansfield Park
Moby Dick

Essays should be written in accordance with the Chicago Manual of STyle (15th edition) from a tradition-oriented critical perspective and should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words long. Contributors will be paid 10 cents per word for accepted essays if the work is previously unpublished and a payment of $100 will be made for previously published essays. Deadline for receipt of all essays will be July 1st, 2009.

The series editor is Joseph Pearce. His email address is:
his name with a period between it
at
avemaria dot edu

 I wrote a paper on Gulliver’s Travels and thoroughly enjoyed both the intellectual stimulation and the excuse to work on one of my favorite literary masterpieces.

What teachers may be doing

instruct: to give a person direction, information, or authorization, aka: to teach

encourage: to give support, confidence, or hope to someone. to raise awareness to the point where one might attempt to do what is difficult

empower: to the give someone the authority or power to do something. to make someone stronger and more confident

inspire: to create a feeling in someone. fill someone with the urge or ability to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative. to animate one to action

90% of students who start at a community college don’t finish college.

Is this because of community colleges? Or is it because the students starting at a community college aren’t actually able to finish?

 Most students who do well in high school don’t go on to a community college. The students who typically go to a community college are either

1. those who struggled in high school, who goofed off, who skipped school, who didn’t do their work. If they have not had a major attitude change, they’re going to do the same thing in a CC and they aren’t going to graduate.
2. those who struggled in high school because they did not have sufficient skills. Their skill levels are not going to automatically improve just because they are going to college. They need remediation and they need tutoring. These are available, but they will have to avail themselves of it.

A study in a Boston Globe article, as reported on The College Puzzle, said

Students attending two-year community colleges-the least-expensive option-fared the worst in the survey by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, with an abysmal 12 percent graduation rate.
…
Seven out of 10 public school graduates may get into college, but many lack the preparation to succeed. At Bunker Hill, for example, more than 80 percent of the Boston students from the class of 2000 required a remedial math course.
…
In this study, a student merely needed to earn a diploma or certificate from any institution of higher education, not just the original college. And by providing at least a six-year window, the study made allowances for students who often juggle college with work or family obligations. Rationalizations are now off the table.

A couple of thoughts: First, is it the college’s fault if the students need remediation when they arrive? Or maybe, to what extent is the college responsible for remediation?

If 80% of the students need remediation, then they are trying to go to college without adequate skills. Perhaps we should quit encouraging everyone to go to college.

My brother-in-law did not go to college. He has a good job in management because he learned how to manage people and he is a conscientious worker. (And he got a job with a company that rewards those things.)

If he had gone to college, he would have been one of those students needing remediation and not passing. My husband, from the same family, actually did better in college than he did in high school.

The more I read studies like these, the more I wonder why we as Americans feel it is important to send our kids to school. In the old days people apprenticed. That was like school, only different. As an apprentice you would learn your job and do it. (Or at least it was to be hoped you would.) Were there a lot of failures in those days that we just don’t hear about because they died young? got run over by a horse? or something equally removing-them-from-the-gene-pool?

The [most successful community] college also offers so-called “nested semesters” that allow students to take accelerated courses over 10- or even 5-week periods in addition to the traditional 15-week schedule. The faster pace creates a sense of urgency missing on many campuses. Minority students, who make up 42 percent of the student body, appear to fare especially well at Quincy College. Black and Hispanic graduation rates for a recent class, says Harris, outstripped that of Asian students.

This is an interesting idea and I am going to pass it on to my dean and president.

I wonder why the Asian students were outstripped. What about the shorter, more intense courses, courted Hispanic and black culture, while putting aside Asian culture? That’s an interesting question. I wonder if it would hold up through a second study or a similar program somewhere else.

No one believes that ill-prepared urban students will suddenly cruise through college. But any college that can’t help at least half to the finish line needs to reexamine what value it is adding to the educational experience.

Again, I may be negative, but why is it the college’s job to get the students through?

I guess I have a different view of the responsibility of students and colleges.

What is the role of the college?

I think the college should provide remediation. It should provide qualified teachers. It should provide technology so that the students can learn that aspect of American culture. It should encourage students. It should make sure students are not trying to swim out of their depth, by taking too many classes or classes for which they are not yet prepared.

It has NO responsibility for students graduating.

Now, if the short terms are good for students, they will also be good for colleges. The colleges will retain more students if the students are doing well. Student retention, though not the job of the college, is a goal of the college. They want to retain as many students as they can reasonably do.

But I know that many schools have watered down their programs. The classes are light. And they are doing this in an attempt to get the students to pass. What’s the use of passing if there was nothing rigorous?

Does it do a student any good to get out of freshman composition and be unable to write an essay exam? No, it does not. They will have essay exams and they will need to do well on them to continue on in their education.

But we water our courses down at the CC in order to “help” more of our students through.

Students rise to a challenge and sink to the lowest common denominator thinking.

It is difficult to learn a new language. I do not teach ESL and this video is actually about Spanish, but I thought it was a fun introduction to the idea of language learning.

With no further ado: “The One Month Spanish Language Love Song”

I received an email from a person who is interested in teaching college English. She put that into a search engine and found my blog.

I’m a newspaper editor considering a new career as a community college teacher. I was hoping you might have a few minutes in the next week or so for me to pick your brain about how to go about getting into the profession.
I’m still doing my research, but I think I’d like to teach developmental English or English for Academic Purposes, English as a Second Language and possibly freshman composition.

I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism and am trying to figure out what kind of master’s degree would qualify me to teach these subjects. I’m also interested in learning what kind of teaching experience I can get with my current experience and education. Part of my job involves teaching and mentoring young journalists, but I’ve never taught in a classroom.

Here is what I told her:

You can teach developmental English at some community colleges with a bachelor’s. You can also usually teach ESL with a bachelor’s.

Freshman composition is the most common course in English at most community colleges.  You need a master’s to teach freshman comp.

A master’s in English, with an emphasis in any field will be sufficient to teach as a part-timer at the community college.

As a newspaper editor, you could probably teach journalism at the community college part-time, or developmental part-time. That would let you know whether you will enjoy it before you actually get into the financial and time commitment of a master’s.

While many community college teachers only have their master’s, there is a surfeit of teachers in English and to get a full-time position you would need to be willing to move and have experience teaching in the community college.

With a PhD I was recently told I might be better off teaching high school. At least the jobs are more plentiful. I’ve done that, though, and I know I like teaching college much better. It might be something for you to consider though.

Does anyone have pearls of wisdom to share?

 Joseph Kugelmass wrote an insightful article for Inside Higher Ed entitled “Stop Using Rhetoric to Teach Writing.”

He says that after five years of teaching composition, he feels it is a mistake to make Aristotelian rhetoric the foundation of writing instruction.

My first thought, sophist that I am, was: Perhaps Quintillian rhetoric would be better?

Then I thought of the minimal rhetoric I have seen taught in composition courses. I would expect since he argues against it that he has seen quite a bit of it. I have not.

Kugelmass makes some interesting points about audience; logos, ethos, and pathos; and advertising. But for me, the pivotal quote was:

The field of rhetoric ought to remain a discipline in its own right, instead of becoming simply another word for using language, and as a discipline it is not broad enough to cover all the moments of aesthetic discovery and delight that initiate students into the writer’s world.

Obviously as a PhD with a first field in Rhetoric and Composition, I have a horse in the race.

I agree with him that rhetoric ought to remain a discipline in its own right. It did not for quite some time in American educational history and I hope rhetoric never again disappears from our universities.

In addition, I agree that rhetoric should not become another word for using language. Nor should it, as it has to some extent, be used to identify specific types of constructions. (Rhetorical questions?)

And I agree with him as well that rhetoric is not wide enough to cover all the beauty in writing.

BUT to me the implication is that rhetoric and its study does not add enough to writing instruction to warrant its inclusion. This, I feel, is a serious error.

While it is true that students speak to their parents differently than they speak to their friends, many students do not yet understand the different audiences of work and academia when they come to our classes.

Yes, probably the students Kugelmass teaches at prep school do. That is part of their home life.

But many students who are struggling in college are struggling because their home life did not prepare them for the different culture, the different expectations, and the different rhetorics used outside their home. This is where English teachers, rhetoricians in particular, can offer a significant value-add.

Looking at logos, pathos, and ethos and how it operates across different cultures could be very helpful for many of our students. Discussing when and where to use them specifically could make a difference to them as well. And identifying what establishes credibility for different audiences would also be helpful.

For instance, in some cultures relationship is the main point of credibility. Students from those cultures attempt to develop a relationship within the writing that moves them away from the typically logical and external writing that academia prefers. They don’t understand why they have lost points, why “you” and “I” are unacceptable, and how they are not meeting the expectations for the composition.

What if tenure were outlawed tomorrow?  What would happen?

Some teachers who haven’t been teaching would get laid off.  

• This would be a good thing.
• It would also encourage others to keep doing their jobs.
• A sweeping round of layoffs would be demoralizing.

Some good teachers who have high seniority, and the attendant price tag, would get laid off.

• We would expect that they would be hired by someone else, but perhaps not.  How do you prove you are the high seniority gifted teacher rather than the poor teacher who hasn’t been working?
• This would be negative for the teacher, financially and emotionally.
• It would be bad for the students because some good teachers would be gone.

Some bad teachers would not be laid off.

• They have social clout or are donor’s family members.
• It would appear to those outside that the teacher is good, else they would be laid off.
• The status of the college would go down with those in the know, because they would know a bad teacher was being kept on when all the excuses were gone.

Some good teachers would not be laid off, despite high seniority.

• Their administrations would recognize their worth.  Thus they would be feel more valued than before.
• A meritocracy would begin to be formed, since only good teachers would be kept on at higher wages.

So, what do you think?  What else would happen if tenure were abolished tomorrow?  I would really like to know.

Or can we be friends?

Core Knowledge Blog has a post on the issue of students and facebooking. I was thinking earlier today about that very question.

I give students my home number, but not my cell. I have office hours. I have met students at restaurants to study and talk.

But I have not friended them on facebook. And I don’t intend to.

One issue that students sometimes have with teachers is that they know too much of their private life. If they’re my friends on fb, they will know too much about my private life.

Also, some students don’t understand that being my “friend” doesn’t mean the grades improve.

So I don’t facebook my students.

I have, in the past, been friendly with students. I was actually friends for years with a student who had been in my composition class. I used to have all my classes over to my house for dinner together. It was fun, but some of the students didn’t get that I was still the teacher. So I don’t do that anymore. And I think that I am carrying the wisdom from that experience over to facebook.

I would love to facebook past students. I’d like to keep up with their lives and encourage them.

But I won’t friend my present students because the line between appropriate and inappropriate is just too blurry. I’d rather keep the gap bigger, just in case someone disagrees on where that line actually is.

 I am an adjunct.  I have wanted to be an adjunct for years, but now I want to find a full-time job.  That is neither here nor there for this post, though.  It’s just a contextual statement.

I got an email yesterday that one of my classes didn’t make.  I actually expected that, but I don’t like it when it happens.  It was a bad class to not make because it is one in which I make 2x the salary as at my other schools.  However, it wasn’t a terrible class to lose because it isn’t through the school from which I purchase my insurance, thus my insurance is still okay.

It’s a pain to lose a good class, though.  I have three preps next semester.  Two of them are brand new classes at SLAC.  And they are preps for one class each.  The other class would have given me two classes for a single prep, which I would prefer, obviously.

I am still teaching five courses in the spring because I thought one of the courses wouldn’t make (the time slot was bad), so I contracted with CC2 to teach a night course.  I didn’t want to drive over there multiple times a week, so I am just going once.  

CC2 is not in the safest neighborhood, but my students live there and I’ve never had anything bad happen to me.   In the spring a woman was killed in a carjacking gone bad across the street while I was meeting my night class, but I didn’t know about it till the next day.  I’m just as glad about that.

Not everyone is in the position I am in.  I can teach more classes than I want to.  Some adjuncts can’t get enough work, so I am grateful for that.

So I am trying to make a living, get my foot in the door, carry a full work load, get conference presentations and publications, and live down the fact that I am an adjunct.  I am doing all but the last.  I’m not too sure how to do the last, but when I figure it out, I will let you know.