March 2009

I got home tonight late and had a phone message. One of the seven jobs I applied for wants to do a phone interview next Monday. (I was so afraid they were going to ask for a date when I was out of town.)

I am so psyched I am having trouble doing any work. Okay, I confess, I was having trouble doing that anyway. I am working on three papers at the same time, because I don’t want to do one of them…

But a phone interview is wonderful!

This is a community college and the type of job is the reason I went to get my PhD. I am very excited.

Taking Advantage of Generational Diversity in the Composition Classroom

Community colleges have a large diversity of students based on age. Forty-three percent of our students are traditional, ages seventeen to twenty-one, but almost as large a cohort, forty-two percent, are between the ages of twenty-two and forty (“Community College Stats”). Facilitating students talking to one another increases their retention in college (Tinto) and thereby increases their habits of lifelong learning, since they have been successful learning in a new environment.

The college itself can encourage intergenerational teaching and learning. Flexibility of time and type of offerings allows students with work and family responsibilities to attend. Active focused clubs, which meet in the evenings, supports cross-generational communication. Innovative teaching awards, on-campus conference days, and continuing education offerings facilitate intergenerational learning and teaching among the faculty.

Within the freshman composition classroom, often “the only place where involvement may arise” (Tinto 601), I have found three successful strategies for encouraging generational diversity and lifelong learning.

An activity which encourages transgenerational communication is peer editing of the narrative paper, the first major writing assignment in the course. The narrative paper acts as a bridge from personal and high school writing to college writing which helps the students through the entry stage in college (Christie and Dinham). This section of the peer editing has often led to conversations between the writer and the reader over their very different experiences.

Since community college students thrive when they feel like they belong (Schuetz), creating an ongoing classroom blog, where students post and comment regularly, is an effective activity. Through the blog, students connect with one another. This encourages intergenerational discussions and relationship-building, which contributes to the students’ retention (Astin).

A third activity that encourages cross-generation conversations is an interview assignment. Since students often pick a major without a thorough understanding of what is required by it, and a poor fit is a reason for student attrition (Tinto), I have them interview a practitioner in their chosen major. Usually those people are in a different age cohort than the students. Many of the students have learned unexpected information in their interview, some of which has led them to change their plans.

In addition, this fall I will be adding another dimension to my attempts to encourage intergenerational learning in the composition classroom. Starting in August 2009, Lone Star will offer a Freshman Composition for Health Science Majors, where the entire class is made up of students who plan to get a degree and work in the health sciences. This will increase the likelihood of their retention (Tinto) and encourage them in their adoption of lifelong learning.

Since even traditional students in the community college have dual lives, lack of separation from their high school friends creates a second life when coupled with their college lives, they are similar to nontraditional students (Christie and Dinham) in trying to maintain a balance between life and school. Encouraging social integration in the classroom will help students across the generations become lifelong learners.

At CCTE this year, I attended a presentation by the UT Computer Writing Lab on using Google Maps for research projects in composition.

Then I read this on Poynter Online:

Blogger Frank Taylor recently wrote about homemade street views, a cool Google Earth trick that could be an intriguing online news tool.

The example Taylor used is from Taiwan, where “Google Earth fanatic” Steven Ho lives. Taylor wrote:

“[Ho] has been waiting for signs Google would bring Street View to Taiwan, but finally couldn’t wait any longer. So, he spent a few days making his own street view panoramas for National Taiwan University’s campus.

“It turns out March is the month when the Indian azalea bloom, so he decided to take his street view photos along the famous Royal Palm boulevard. Steven took the time to not only take 150 panoramas, but also process his KML [Keyhole markup language, which is to Google Earth what HTML is to Web browsers] so it looks and acts just like Google Earth’s Street View imagery. He also added in some 3D buildings for the campus and the palm trees.”

Very cool.

Since I am having to teach my students how to type, I am not sure I’m going to be able to implement the Google Maps research project anytime soon. But it is a cool idea.

How does Sexual Assault Trauma Impact Classrooms?

For survivors of sexual assault, language can become a barrier to communication. A sexual assault survivor’s language may change; this might be seen through rejection or isolation of the word rape, due to its socially-constructed meanings, or utilization of silence to a culturally uncharacteristic degree. This can lead to misunderstandings in the classroom.

In a composition classroom, the parameters of an assignment might result in an essay which appears to not match the assignment. An example of this is when a woman described her fear about hearing someone coming up the stairs to her apartment and her overwhelming relief when it turns out to be her boyfriend in a paper that was supposed to deal with rape. The instructor did not recognize that the author was a survivor (Amron).

In a literature classroom, the reading may involve sexual assault and, even though the survivor reads the work, her (or his) personal experience and subsequently-adapted coping mechanisms cause her to disassociate the sexual from the violent in their reading, thus leaving her with an incomplete understanding of the text. An example of this is a woman who read a play for sophomore literature, was very active in the ensuing discussion, but was completely flummoxed when the professor asked her a question about the rape in the play. She had not read a rape.

The sexual assault survivors’ very different life experiences lead to language changes which affect their writing in two-year college classrooms.

This is one of the abstracts that was accepted to MLA and which I will be giving the paper on in December.

Apply to multiple sessions and you might get accepted.

Today I got an email back from one of the MLA abstracts I sent in. Believe it or not, I was holding my breath, hoping that I did NOT get accepted.

What was that about?

Over the weekend, the two abstracts I most wanted accepted were accepted. Since MLA will let you present twice, that was great. The third abstract, though interesting, was not what I wanted to talk about most. So I was thrilled to be turned down.

By the way, that group only had five abstracts submitted. So there was a better than 50% acceptance rate for that session.

There’s something to keep in mind when applying. Some of the sessions have hundreds of applications and some of them have just a few. Apply to multiple sessions and you might get accepted.

I was.

I have my students do an informational interview with someone in their major so that they will know what to expect and whether this is indeed where they want to go.

The Chronicle.com has an article about doing informational interviews.

It’s all about people who aren’t sure they like the academic area they have gotten into. So, it is written for PhD students and academics, but it still applies to anyone who is thinking about changing careers.

Jenny: Before the interview, take a look at the most recent Occupational Outlook Handbook and see what the government says about that career field. Then during the interview, you might ask questions such as: “In what ways is your occupation changing?; what is the employment outlook in your career field?; do you know if the field is growing?; and, how is the downturn in the economy affecting your industry?”

Julie: With informational interviews, you are not only learning about a type of job, career, or industry, you are also building a network of contacts. It is unlikely that your informational interviews will result in a job in the short term, and that can be frustrating. However, as you slowly build your professional network, you’ll start to hear about openings from people you’ve interviewed.

The article has a lot of good ideas.

Who hasn’t?

I was turned down on an MLA presentation. I take solace in this.

It might be good for our students to see too.

Although it is common to examine the apocryphal book of Judith as the only source for the Old English Judith poem, this view is too limiting. There are clear differences between the apocryphal Judith and the poetic Judith.

The apocraphyal Judith was a widow, not a virgin, so the poet made a conscious decision to change Judith’s marital status. The possible sources for the change in status are various.

The change in status for Judith could have come about because in the Anglo-Saxon age it was possible for a single woman to maintain a position in society. This understanding of the meaning of Judith’s singleness is upheld by the extensive laws of the day which existed to protect the rights of women and by the presence of the wills of powerful women who maintained their own property (Fell, 83).

While the change in Judith’s marital status has multiple possible sources (Christian, Anglo-Saxon heroic, Old Norse valkyrie), one source for the poetic Judith is clearly from the Old English heroic tradition. The poetic Judith must also be compared to the Anglo-Saxon heroic male warriors. The same heroic attributes—soberness of mind and courage in action—are emphasized.

The poetic Judith saw herself not as insignificant, but as a weapon fit to destroy a powerful enemy. These details establish the place of women in Anglo-Saxon poetry. A woman in Anglo-Saxon society was allowed to be above the average in wealth, in beauty, and in ability (Fell). A hero is expected to be. It is because of these qualities that the audience expected heroic actions. They were not disappointed.

Another way in which the treatment of the poetic Judith is similar to that of the heroic male warriors is in the descriptions of her personal wealth. Like other heroes, her wealth is described by the adornment of her person. She was arrayed with bracelets and wearing rings when she went to Holofernes’s tent (36). She was ring-letted as she chopped off his head (105) and ornamented with gold when she called the town to her and showed them his head (171).

The source of her wealth is the same source as the male heroes. Her wealth is attributable to her military exploits, to her having received war booty as a soldier. She is adorned in golde gefraetwod. So are the soldiers who she sends out to fight the Assyrians. This appears to be a formulaic expression for gold ornamentation on military costumes (Damico, 29).

Also, Judith’s relationship with her maid and the description of the maid are militaristic. Judith and her maid are described as beahhrodene (132). Normally someone covered in rings is wealthy and generous and has had a lot of interaction with other people (Damico, 32). While this could easily be applied to Judith, it cannot be equally applied to her maid without loss of credibility. If the woman were wealthy, she would not be a maid. There is, however, another explanation. The poet makes the warrior qualities of Judith also applicable to her maid; the maid is resourceful and mannerly, courageous and careful. The use of ringed one is, in this instance, in the middle of a scene where the two women are portrayed as conquering warriors, returning home in triumph. This sets both Judith and her maid up as heroes. Certainly the maid is a minor figure, but she is a heroine nevertheless. She is a warrior and a warrior’s companion.

Together the two women are a triumphant army. The maid is the armor bearer and the supply clerk, because she carries the provisions necessary for Judith and herself to eat and with which to adorn Judith properly. Judith is the general and the cavalry—coming to the rescue just before the time of surrender. Thus not only is Judith’s status as a soldier set forth, but this status is reinforced by her maid’s status as a solider as well. This understanding of the two women is wholly in accord with the Old English poet’s presentation of them.

Judith has the wisdom of the heroic male warriors. In the poem she enters the camp without any preconceived plan. The only thing she is sure of is that her people are in need of deliverance. The poet shows that Judith has the wisdom to act well in trying situations. Even though she evidenced no idea of how to enter or leave the Assyrian camp, we are told that she did so, apparently at will. This is an integral part of the heroic tradition. The hero must be able to arrive at and depart from a place whenever desired because of a quick wit and an ability to make the most of every opportunity.

When she is led unsuspectingly into the tent of Holofernes, Judith is able to take immediate advantage of her enemy’s weakness. She creates the circumstances in which Holofernes becomes drunk and vulnerable to her attack, even though he is surrounded by armed guards. The poetic Judith once again shows a heroic penchant for turning the worst circumstances to her own good. This is necessary for the creation of a realistic hero in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.

The poetic Judith has heroic strength. Clearly the strength of Judith in the poem is greater than the strength of the biblical Judith and this strength is a product of the heroic tradition. Judith used her heroic strength to lug the dead weight of the drunken Holofernes around inside the tent. The necessity of two chops to decapitate Holofernes matches the heroic equivalence factor which demands that adversaries of the heroes be worthy opponents. Had Holofernes been such a puny enemy that his head could be removed with a simple sweep of the sword, Judith’s heroic qualities would have been diminished.

The poetic Judith is clearly a leader of men, another heroic attribute. She goes against the enemy with only her handmaiden for support. When she has vanquished the leader of the enemy, she returns to a besieged city and commands the guards to let her in. They do so. Her leadership is further evidenced by the fact that she commands her people to take up arms and attack the Assyria army and, with no other identified directives, the people do so in an organized manner. This is not a mob being incited. This is an army mobilizing on orders. Finally her status as a leader is indicated by the fact that the possessions of Holofernes are returned to her as the rightful owner. In addition, she receives her prize from the people as a whole and not from a leader or ringer. It appears from the poem that she is the only war-leader of her people. Because of this, she could be seen as the booty acquirer of her people.

Also Judith has the rhetorical skills of a leader. Through her verbal request to God, she is chosen as a deliverer of her people. At her verbal command, her people go out against the Assyrian army, a force much larger than their own, with the confidence that they will win, because they have Judith’s assurance of the fact. Another example of the poetic Judith utilizing heroic rhetoric is the fact that when Judith returned triumphant to the city, she did not enter into a long (or even a truncated version) and eloquent prayer indicating the incongruency of a mere woman bringing about the fall of Holofernes, and through him the fall of the entire Assyrian army, even though this was a major part of the story of the biblical Judith. The poet is following the heroic pattern and such humility was clearly not a standard form in heroic poetry. In fact, boastfulness is much more heroic than humility and had the poet left the denigrating prayer intact, the heroic qualities of Judith would have been quickly and effectively minimized.

Another point of differentiation between the poetic and biblical Judiths are the named goods which the two receive from the tent of Holofernes. The reward which the biblical Judith is presented with as booty are household items. On the other hand, the named goods the poetic Judith receives are war materials.

The narrative of the biblical Judith ends by telling how long she lived and how her property was divided when she died. She is set up as the ideal women of Proverbs chapter thirty-one. The narrative of the poetic Judith ends with her sending out the fighting men and receiving back as her booty the weapons of Holofernes. Thus she is a warrior virgin. This clearly sets her up as coming from a different tradition. Having looked at examples, it is clear that one tradition the poetic Judith calls on is the Old English hero.

This is part of a paper presented at the A Useful Past conference in Tyler, Texas.

Teaching in the community college doesn’t have to be boring and rote. It can be fun, educational, and interesting.

If you are willing to make it that way.

My Classroom Epiphany is about a teacher learning that teaching in the community college is not what she expected. And that is to the good.

When the door closes, I told my students in a conspiratorial aside, Iago-like, no one knows what we’re discussing; I can teach you graduate-level concepts and strategies, and no one will ever know or care. The students’ eyes blazed with the excitement of transgressive learning, and right then we were all caught up in a dramatic and revolutionary experiment that is still unfolding for me.