Gulliver’s Travels has been a part of the English literature canon for centuries and the tales Lemuel Gulliver describes in his travel writing have fascinated people of all ages.Literature has a unique ability to influence the reader’s worldview through the texts’ subtle inculcation of particular philosophies.Identifying the philosophy set forth in a particular work allows the reader to be more aware of and thus on guard against a thoughtless assimilation of beliefs and values which abrogate their own.What worldview is embedded in the storyline and characters in Gulliver’s Travels? How does Swift present the important worldview concepts of reason, nature, truth, beauty, change, language, science, and learning?And finally, which of these descriptions are meant satirically, and thus intended to invoke their opposites, and which are genuinely meant?Engaging the author’s presuppositions through questioning and examination encourages a strengthening of the individual’s understanding of the book and their own worldview.
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That was the proposal that was accepted. The bolded section was my original list of points. I changed that and worked on truth, nature of man, change and progress, perception and reality, beauty, and science.
There was a lot of work to do, but I love to read and write, so that wasn’t bad. The hardest part was getting the work down to 5000 words. I think I ended up with 5021, but at one time it was 7400. I hate to cut, too. That’s hard.
I do think that the paper was well-written. I think it was appropriate for a high school/college audience and that it is a reasonable academic paper as well. Keeping that in balance was difficult and in my last reading, I had to take out some references to the intended audience.
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If you think this would be something you would enjoy doing, see the <A HREF=”http://www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2008/12/31/call-for-papers/”>last post on the CFP for articles</a> for Ignatius Critical Editions’ next works.
I know very well how little Reputation is to be got by Writings which require neither Genius nor Learning, nor indeed any other Talent, except a good Memory, or an exact Journal.
–Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Part 4, Chapter 12
This makes me feel a little better (and worse) about my blog, which is its own form of journal and which requires no genius, though I would hope it uses learning and talent. Hmm.
But it made me smile today to read it in GT when I was working on my critical essay for publication, so I thought I would share it here.
Your proposal “Ensuring Information Literacy and Sustainable Learning across Socioeconomic Backgrounds” has been accepted for the Computers and Writing 2009 Conference. As you know, the theme of the 2009 conference is Ubiquitous and Sustainable Computing @ school @ work @ play. The conference will be held at the University of California, Davis, June 18 - June 21, 2009. the conference website
It promises to be an outstanding 3 1/2 days of workshops and panels. I am also happy to announce our keynote speakers–Bill Cope (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Barbara Ganley (Centers for Community Digital Learning / Middlebury College). Friday night will feature the annual Computers and Writing Awards ceremony. Saturday night will include an exhibit of digital artworks/multimedia narrative projects. Following a long standing C&W tradition, bowling will be available for those interested (We have an alley on campus, and have already reserved lanes!).
In keeping with the theme of ubiquitous computing, I would like to encourage you to consider presenting a working version of your project at the online portion of Computers and Writing 2009. The online portion of C&W ‘09 runs Feb. 16 - Mar. 2, 2009. Potential venues for online presentations include:
* synchronous sessions in Second Life,
* synchronous sessions using Adobe Connect Pro,
* 2-day list-serv discussions,
* week-long forum topics in Sakai,
* week-long wiki building activities in Sakai,
* podcasts played through Sakai, or
* other innovative online formats.
The CFP for the online conference is at http://writingprogram.ucdavis.edu/cw2009/online_cfp.htm. The online portion of C&W 09 is being hosted by a group of California universities (University of California, Irvine; San Jose State (CSU San Jose); University of Southern California; University of California, Santa Barbara; Sacramento State (CSU Sacramento); and University of California, Davis). The online submission form will be available at the conference website following Thanksgiving.
I’d love to submit a working version of my paper. But what venue should I use?
“The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies,” Halperin said. “The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it case her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn’t talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that’s ever been written about her.”
The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was “like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is,” according to Halperin.
But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass — no, make that shameless support — they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press.
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No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side — or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.
If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
In the crossword puzzles in The New York Times are biased in favor of Obama and Biden finds David Levinson Wilk in Politico. Wilk did a little research to see how many times McCain has been an answer in the NYT puzzle since 2005. He came up with zero entries. When he looked for Obama he found the name “regularly appeared” in the puzzle. Does this prove that the Times is “150 percent in the tank” for Obama…?
Russia’s Central Elections Committee has also assigned its Centre for the Study of Election Technology to review the U. S. election campaign.
A preliminary report prepared by the group, after studying U. S. media coverage on the NBC, CBS and ABC television networks since September, has concluded Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has a “hidden advantage.”
A preliminary report obtained by the Russian daily online newspaper Kommersant concludes the U. S. television networks devoted more time to Republican candidate John McCain, but “the material that makes up that time difference can be assessed as negative.”
CONCLUSIONS: Obama’s number was +16.01 and McCain’s: -9.14.
This equals net of Obama + 25.15
The media is biased.
So are those who watch the media.
News Audiences More Democratic
The general public has become more Democratic since 2006, and this is reflected in the audiences for leading TV news outlets. The audiences for CNN and MSNBC, which were heavily Democratic two years ago, have become even more so: fully 51% of CNN’s regular viewers are Democrats while only 18% are Republicans. MSNBC’s audience makeup is similar – 45% of regular viewers of MSNBC are Democrats, 18% are Republicans.
The regular audience for nightly network news also is now about two-to-one Democratic (45% vs. 22% Republican). In 2006, 40% of the regular viewers of nightly network news were Democrats compared with 28% who were Republicans.
The regular audience for the Fox News Channel continues to include more Republicans than Democrats. Currently, 39% of regular Fox News viewers are Republicans while 33% are Democrats; in 2006, the margin was 38% to 31%. (15)
I am working on a paper for CCTE’s State of the Profession. I’ve worked on it from a lot of angles and I am not happy with it yet. I know it is going somewhere, and I know where I want it to go, but the paths I’m taking to get there are not right yet.
While I was searching my hard drive for some quotes I took note of, I found an old paper that I worked on twenty years ago. I had started updating it and realized that one of the Call For Papers would be perfect for it, if I revise it just a little. So I am going to do that.
And I found another CFP that is for an online journal. One of the papers I have just begun working on would be perfect for that. So I need to flesh out the proposal a bit and send it on.
Another alienating factor in the classroom (especially when dealing with controversial issues) is that often our students assume that we think there is a right and a wrong answer on a topic, that we are right, and that their job is to intuit the “correct” answer.
But I think that most of us want to expand the students’ horizons, not control them. We want to challenge their worldview even when they don’t yet know what that means. To do this we must avoid making our opinions the boundary of our students’ exercise of their brains.
“23% [of students surveyed] felt they had to agree with a professor to get a good grade, though the majority of these felt this had only happened once.” (Jaschik)
I always tell my students that I have an opinion, but that they don’t have to agree with me—even though I am right.
I also make it clear that I will not grade their paper based on whether I agree with their argument, but will grade it based on content and mechanics.
This contract, if you like, of willingness on my part to pet the elephant goes a long way towards alleviating the problems. It sets out a clear parameter for looking at dissenting views and it establishes my neutrality on the topics as they relate to the course. This positioned neutrality is a boon to our students because it takes away the need to guess which position we support and encourages them to develop their own position.
Even though I am looking for neutrality in this controversial discussion, I still limit my students’ choices. If there were topics that I felt I could not deal with objectively, I would inform them of that. I haven’t ever had anyone suggest working on such a topic, but I know it could happen. Any other disallowed topics are acknowledged and explained.
When I present the controversial issues research paper, I tell the students they may not write on religion. I explain that I will not count off for a reasonably presented argument based on faith, but I don’t want the whole paper to be on whether or not one religion is the best. The reason for this is that it is hard for the writer who believes in this position to see where her arguments fall short and reasonable discussion on the paper’s merits is often impossible.
Lee says we need to have a pedagogical reason for whatever things like this, that can be seen as encroaching on free speech. (I may need to work on this more carefully.)
I also limit to one the number of faith-based arguments that are allowed in any single paper. I let them know the rationale behind this; they have no guarantee their audience will have the same religious view as they do. If their audience does not, then the more religious arguments there are, the less persuasive the argument they are making in their paper will be.
In addition I tell the students that I don’t want anything on sexual assault, child abuse, or domestic violence. In these cases the reason is I don’t want nightmares.
I think the students appreciate my upfront approach and it also makes me more approachable, by acknowledging that I do have personal limitations and making it clear that these do not have to be intuited. With such clear guidelines, the students feel more comfortable. And I know students will follow the teacher’s guidelines because my students have followed mine.
I am going back to a syllabus that more accurately reflects my “personality and style.” Do you think the school has antique parchment in hot pink for photocopies?
I think that the impetus to do something fun with my online syllabus at Davis English came from this thinking.
The text is not supposed to be a bear trap that springs closed on your classroom and holds it still till it bleeds out. It is supposed to be a starting point, a jumping off point, a useful tool for your teaching. Use it; don’t let it abuse you.
Gulliver’s Travels has been a part of the English literature canon for centuries and the tales Lemuel Gulliver describes in his travel writing have fascinated people of all ages. Literature has a unique ability to influence the reader’s worldview through the texts’ subtle inculcation of particular philosophies. Identifying the philosophy set forth in a particular work allows the reader to be more aware of and thus on guard against a thoughtless assimilation of beliefs and values which abrogate their own. What worldview is embedded in the storyline and characters in Gulliver’s Travels? How does Swift present the important worldview concepts of reason, nature, truth, beauty, change, language, science, and learning? And finally, which of these descriptions are meant satirically, and thus intended to invoke their opposites, and which are genuinely meant? Engaging the author’s presuppositions through questioning and examination encourages a strengthening of the individual’s understanding of the book and their own worldview.
