Work Around, Learn Around

When  I was a student in high school I performed a speech to address the topic: Describe the model student.  Within the speech, we were supposed to address some mistakes we had made along the way.

I addressed a mistake that I think some writers and liberal arts-oriented students often make.  I was behind in mathematics, so I attempted to learn around the math.  This strategy is to learn and know so many concepts, facts and ideas so that no one would catch on to the fact that I did not know the math.

The problem with this strategy is that your math teacher knows for sure.  She can narrow down which points in math that you know and which you don’t, and she will be happy to make you a list. 

Here is what I said in my speech, in a laundry list of don’ts, “Your math teacher will not care that you are reading the (Robert) Browning version of Agamemnon.   The only thing your math teacher is concentrating on is whether you know the math.”

Understand that I was warning my fellow students off the “Learn everything around it” track.  Although I was copping to a strategy of faking what I did not know, perhaps your math teacher does care that you are reading the Browning version of Agamemnon. 

In the movie Man Woman and Child, Professor Robert Beckwith is happy that a medical student he is advising wants to take a Shakespeare course.  This is the idea that we are working across in the disciplines.  If we are producing thinking doctors who have written criticism on Shakespeare, then we have produced a  well-rounded medical student. While your math teacher is placing you in a position to better learn the math, it may help to know which books you have been reading, what your interests are and where you sleep at night.  He or she can use clues about how you perform in other classes to help you break on through to the other side.  You will do it eventually, because I did it.  You will start to put math concepts together and string along some logic with it, and it will start to make sense.

Students who struggle in math say “I hate math.” What they are really saying is that they vehemently dislike the 20s they are making on the test.  These are good students who are frustrated.  It is rather like being locked out of the house.

I have more to say on the subject.  Stay tuned.

Wikis and Collaboration

Collaborative ideas abound.  I think one of the best tools I have seen recently for collaboration is the wiki.  Everyone gets on the wiki and brainstorms with ideas and then everyone vets the ideas.  It is a kind of technological brainstorming. Or perhaps for technologically advanced persons, it is just brainstorming.  I think wikis are a technological breakthrough.  You have people from different places and they all sign in and write a little, think a little. It sure beats the conference call.  When I am on a conference call, I hear, “Wait, what did you say? Let me write this down.”  With the wiki, we have already written it down.

And that brings me to another point.  I previously said ” … one of the best tools.”  The wiki is a tool. So don’t be afraid of it.  And I don’t have to say that the people involved in the wiki have to have ideas before they can write them down.  This kind of goes without saying.  However, the ideas are up on the wiki and everyone can see them.  One thought gives rise to another and another, and then we have a collaborative effort.

Engaging Ideas are Where You Find Them

I have turned the book Engaging Ideas by John C. Bean into the AUM library if anyone wishes to check it out.  I decided that it would not be fair to hold the book until the end of the semester, because some of you will want to use it.  It has some great curriculum ideas and pointers.

This is so often the problem in the academic library.  Professors will offer a great book, a must read for the term, and someone beats everyone to the punch and checks it out for the entire term.  So I am compelled to share. I used the parts of the book I needed and am returning it to the commons.  Our circulation loves it when you check out books!  The book is located on the fifth floor, and its call number is PE 1404 .B35 2001.  Happy reading, or happy digging for great curriculum ideas.

As the Crow Flies

I just finished reading Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow.  This book reminds me that there are great writers out there, paying attention.  This work is a fictional account of the life of Jonah (Jayber) Crow.  Coming of age in the Depression Era, Jayber has learned economic lessons wisely.  He often finds himself out of favor with the modern world, yet choses to live his own way.

The irony of this work is that Jayber is forever the solitary man, against the natural elements, yet very much a part of a community. He has a foot in both worlds and endeavors to apprentice in both landscapes. He makes no demand from society and embraces everything, good and bad that comes his way.   My favorite rendering from the book is “For a long time then I seemed to live by a slender thread of faith, spun out from within me.  From this single thread I spun strands that joined me to the good things of this world.  And then I spun more threads that joined all the threads together, making a life.  When it was complete, or nearly so, it was shapely and beautiful in the light of day.  It endured through the nights, but sometimes it only bearly did. It would be tattered and set awry by things that fell or blew or fled or flew. Many of the strands would be broken. Those I would have to spin  and weave again in the morning.”

The imagery of weaving a tapestry out of living is powerful here. He continues to set his world aright, in the midst of the failings of others.   The confluence of the singular man, conjoined with his community is a recurring theme throughout the work and reminds me of how writers operate.  A thinking person, conjoining with his community — doesn’t this square with the themes and activities in our class?

I <3 Teacher’s Domain

When I traveled to science.gov, I found a knoweldge site that I have been using for about four months.  It is called Teacher’s Domain.  It meets the current definition of Open Source and it is a collaboration with Public Braodcasting.  You will need, of course, to place your user ID and password in the box.  I am not an educator, so I checked the parent box.

I love how easy it is to use and that it includes all levels of education. Students, parents and educators can all benefit.  I also like the collective atmosphere of learning this Open Source generates.

Elizabeth Gilbert is now on my reading list

It was so interesting to view Ken Robinson and Elizabeth Gilbert on Ted.com.  I am truly amazed by their insights, so now I would like to read their works.  (Reminder: Visit local public library soon.) We were just commenting in our triad how like the thinking was in Sir Ken Robinson and Elizabeth Gilbert compared to Sarah Allen in “An Inspired Writer vs. a Real Writer.”  According to Sarah Allen, however, writing is hard work!  This fact may be easy to forget, but it takes much practice over the course of a lifetime.

The idea of writing being hard work was embedded in the presentation by Elizabeth Gilbert.  She discusses the burden of the legacy of good writing and how a writer is seemingly only as good as his bestseller.  This speaks to the commodifying of talent that is so prevalent in our culture.  She is careful to place the emphasis on this kind of commodification where it belongs.  She writes without respect for whether her work will sell on a grand scale.

Are we inspired yet?

I do agree with Sarah Allen when she discusses “inspired” writing.  In my high school creative writing class, we spent lots of time waiting around to “get inspired.” And we finally can conclude that you have to have something to work with to be inspired.  You have to come to the table with something , and it does not necessarily have to be good.

However, I have to disagree with Ms. Allen when she says that a mom cannot critcally read her son or daughter’s paper. Yes we can. yeah. However, we will not be able to read it with any kind of objectivity.  So, for a host of other reasons I disagree. Ms. Allen states that dear Mom has to teach college level writing before she can critique your paper.  My answer is that parents lack objectivity.  I am reminded of the beginning scene in the play Fantasticks, in which the father of the son says, “My son is fantastic!” and the father of the daughter responds with, “My daughter is fantastic.”  The very next scene is a vaudevillian act of some sort to cut the schmaltz. This contrivance works because the audience is not willing to hear one more time why he thinks his daughter is fantastic.

Parents cannot critique the way a professor can.  The reason is that they are too close to their child and the bond becomes a distraction to good writing.  The part I disagree with is that the parent must be a college writing professor.  How about this:  I’ll read and critique your daughter’s papers if you will read and critique my son’s.   I think this is a reasonable solution.

No better time than now

I promised that I would shed some light on my impressions of Composing a Community: A History of Writing Across the Curriculum.  There is no better time than now for me to close the loop and be more professional. You may remember my discussion stream in which I mooned all over the fact that “This was MY school – Aren’t we great?”  It’s OK to be true to your school, but I must enter a more mature discussion on the history of WAC, a discussion that is more clinical and objective.

Mr. John Bean contines at Montana State and tries the mircotheme idea.  We completed microthemes in my classes at University of Montevallo, Alabama, before attending University of Great Falls. The purpose of a microtheme is to answer a puzzling question or to place a finer point on a problem in under 200 words.  This assignment is a more rigorous one because one must make a carefully worded cogent, pithy statement in fewer than 200 words.  If you enjoy the ten-page paper and rally for the repeat, this assignment is not for you.  The challenge  is to say it meaningfully in under 200. Good luck and don’t despair.  It takes practice. 

There were many other ideas in Composing ... that I thought could be implemented in a WAC program such as Showing Not Telling workshop at Michigan Tech and the Writing Talks newsletter at UNC Charlotte, which is a forum for sharing writing at the university. These programs demonstrate the underlying foundations of WAC programs and help us discover a more complete design of Writing Across the Curriculum.

Angst is the operative syllable

I knew that 2010 was the 50th anniversary of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, so I knew I had to read and study at least a portion of the “Rabbit” series. I was supposed to read it last year, but waited until May 2011 to polish off Rabbit, Run.  I don’t think time will allow me to read all five, yet I must complete Rabbit, Redux. That Harry or “Rabbit” has issues.  Rabbit is unrepentent about how he left his marriage, yet he keeps his weekly golf appointment with Jack Eccles, his minister.  I am going to have to reveal on a guy who knows he’s doing wrong, yet persists in going back week after week to the only person in his life who can help him.

Jack Eccles is one of my favorites.  He keeps telling his wife, Lucy, that Harry can be redeemed.  Even if you do not particularly like Rabbit, Jack Eccles is the guy you want to meet. He never gives up on Rabbit.  We are rather placed into the role of Jack Eccles, are we not, when we understand and help students?  It takes time and practice to cultivate a writing style and to be polished at it.  Some students can only now be awakening to the writing life.  There are struggles along the way. They are going to need tools. Some tools are: style books, books on the writing life, such as Anne Lamotte’s Bird by Bird, a thesaurus, some help with grammar and usage, access to a working computer and our patience. Are there model elements that we can take from the role of Jack Eccles to use with struggling and reluctant students? A student can redeem himself and turn around in the timeslot of a semester.

Would anyone else like to carry forth on Rabbit, Run or the Rabbit series?  Rabbit tried my patience at times, but it was the character of Jack Eccles who kept me reading.

The truth as I see it

I read Genre in a Changing World because I was interested in which writing styles compose genres. Genre in a Changing World exhorts me to appreciate the changing academic landscape and also to appreciate how we came into the discipline divide of pigeonholing disciplines in terms of what kinds of learning take place.   In Genre in a Changing World, we are writing to learn instead of  learning to write. There is a huge semantic difference between learning to write and writing to learn.  On the surface, it looks like only a subtle difference.  However, if we can bring learners to the writing table, they will improve their critical thinking skills and practice Aristotelian logic.  This assists students with the basic need to find a voice and practice within that voice to understand the bigger story of the modern age.