Rhetoric, Critical Thinking, and The Bible

In one of my classes, the students are required to write a pursuasive essay. In our class, I decided to have the students read and write about “the future.” As I have written here previously, we read the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, read various essays on the (possible) future, and viewed multi-media pieces on the same subject. As our textbook tells us, “Everything is an Argument” which leaves plenty of room to play and analyze the rhetoric used to make arguments about the future.

The final essay was the culmination of all of our work on rhetoric, research, and imagining the future. I was quite impressed with the results I received from my students. They were mostly thoughful, well researched, if a bit on the depressing side (not very many happy pictures of our future). Certainly there were some that were unfocused, others that were poorly researched; over-all, however, I was quite happy with my students` work. But there was one essay that gave me pause.

One student chose to write about how we are currently witnessing the End of Days as desccibed in the Bible. The student went on to very logically and meticulously show all of the ways our world currently resembles what is “fortold” in the Bible. Rhetorically, it was very pursuasive. The Bible says this, our world looks like this, therefore we are at The End of Days. On the basis of the research the student had done and the rhetorical strategies the student employed, this was a strong B or even A paper (give or take some grammatical issues). But, what to do, how to evaluate, the “reliability” of the Bible as a source?

Adding to the complexity of the issue, the student in fact had done much the same thing in an assignment I had devised, asking them to compare our world to the world imagined/fortold in Fahrenheit 451. By the end of the essay, the students had come to various conclusions about how similar our world is to Bradbury`s imaginary world and what that could mean, what lessons we should be taking from that comparison. How is Bradbury`s fictional world (as a source) any different from the Bible`s vision of the future?

Please don`t think that I am so naive that I don`t know the answer to that question already. But, I teach in a place where the Bible is still an important document that many of my students (and their families and communities) revere. And I know that others react with a quick dismissal of any student who would quote the Bible or any religious text as a sign that the student has shown no critical thinking or even, perhaps, doesn’t deserves to be in university. And this is where the conflict, for me, comes to head. The difference, of course, is in how we know the students treat the two works: the Bible as fact and Fahrenheit 451 as fiction. If the student didn`t actually believe the Bible but instead treated it as a work of fiction, would the final product thus be more worthy? And how am I to know, one way or the other, what the student believes? It certainly, for me, isn`t my place to judge a student`s faith or beliefs. But I know there are people who would expect me to fail or at least grade the student more harshly based on the fact that, for them, the Bible is a reliable source.

I am particularly troubled because I know that this is generally a good student; they do the work, they make a real effort, and has shown great improvement. And the work the student did was good; knowing that the Bible is a contentious document, the student really did go out of their way to outline as many similarities as possible. Not to mention that every other source the student used was a “legitimate” source as we discussed in class. But I also know that this student`s essay is going to be read by my colleagues (anonymously) for our general education/student learning outcomes requirement. And while this student will never know the things that I know will be said about her/his paper, it stings me nonetheless. And I also know that my colleagues will wonder what grade this student received on the paper. They`ll never know, but I know they`d be troubled to learn that it is probably a much better grade than they hoped.

So I`m going to ask for this advice. What can I or should I do in these situations?

Loss of Classroom Autonomy and Grade Grubbing

After mecifully not having too many grade grubbers last semester, this semester, they have come out of the woodwork. I have one particular student who has sent me multiple emails (starting about three weeks before the end of the semeser) begging me for bonus work because the student knew that s/he was far away from getting an A. I don`t do bonus work, but I did allow the student to hand in an assignment that s/he had missed. It was only worth 5%, but, as the student figured out, those 5% assignments add up quickly. The student actually wrote to me that s/he received A`s on all of the major writing assignments and refused to get a B in the class because of some “stupid” 5% quizzes and assignments.

And this is where things start to get a bit tricky for me; there is a significant portion of the grade in my class that is based not on what I have assigned and developed, but things that I have been forced on me because of` “accountability” and “student learning outcomes.” I have tried to minimize the impact that these assignments and quizzes could have on the students` final grades, but inevitably, they add up.

So I`m torn; part of me wants to just round everyone`s grades up if they completed the “required” portions and be done with it. But part of me also wants to write that a) it was clearly outlined on a syllabus that these assignments would be worth something and b) they should be grateful that I am technically not following the guidelines by making these assignments only worth 5% each (they are supposed to be worth 10% each). And still another part of me wants to say, look at your homework grade. That`s where you lost your A.

But this situation raises a great deal of questions for me. My students` know that certain parts of the course are not of my doing nor are these parts what I want to be doing or evaluating. And I resent the fact that so much of my students` grades are based on elements I have absolutely no control over. As we increasingly stadardize college courses, particularly general education and writing courses, what are we really accomplishing other than simply collecting “data” and undermining the authority and autonomy of the individual instructor? Students are not stupid; mine have figured out the weakness in the process and are exploiting it for their own benefit.
And I feel powerless to stop them, really. I am tempted to really commit career suicide by recommending to the student that if s/he is unhappy with the grade I assigned, then they should take it up with the Provost, the person responsible for all of these “assessement” measures. I know it will get kicked back down to our department, saying that we were “free” to develop whatever assessment measures we wanted (just as long as they fit into this long list of requirements that have nothing to do with our dicipline).

Maybe this will help students understand and fight back on this move towards standardization in higher education. Because the faculty certainly aren`t getting anywhere.

Timed Finals: Doing What You Already Know

(This might be rough, as I am composing the on an iPad in the airport)

My 100-level students are required to write a common final which consists of reading two pieces (one primary, one secondary) and then answer an essay question. We are allowed to discuss the primary text in class and this semester, the students can also see the secondary source ahead of time when they complete an online reading comprehension test. But they do not see the question until they get to the exam.

We spent the final class of the semester discussion strategies for successfully writing a timed-essay final exam. I usually dislike the times essay model as I don’t think it’s an accurate measure of a students’ writing ability or thought process. In fact, I think it’s hypocritical for us to teach or encourage students to take their time, write and revise, and reflect, and then start the stopwatch. But I also know that other diciplines required essay exams in a limited time frame, so it is valuable for me to at least teach them some strategies for facilitating the extremely stressful situation. My students are not confident writers in the best of circumstances, but add a time-limit and they fall apart.

I talked about planning their time, doing quick outlines, keeping a piece of paper to write down ideas as they come, and, above all, understand their weaknesses an plan accordingly. Their faces were filled with fear and nothing I said seemed to sooth their terror. (Do you sooth terror? Relieve? Assuage? Anyway, onward.) I finally realized how I would get them to relax in their exam. I told them that they were already experts at the timed essay and had practiced it often before. You know, when they write their papers for any other class at the last possible minute.

Listen, I said, other than being in your room, what’s the difference between what you do in an exam and what you do at 2 am the day an essay is due. Other than the essay actually being worth more than the final. If they approach the essay final the same way they approach writing a paper at the last minute, then they’ll be fine. Better than fine, because often the bar for grammar, etc, is lower in a timed final. As long as you stay on topic (no small feat), they’d knock this out of the park.

It was effective. They were visibly relieved. They believed me that they could, indeed, be successful in their exam. My job was done. We’ll see how they do once I get back.

My New Writing/Summer Project

My institution awarded me a research grant for the summer. My project is to look at and write about Dany Laferrière’s practice of rewriting, revising, and adapting his work. It’s a subject that has long fascinated me, starting ten years ago when I, on little more than a whim, decided to add his debut novel, provocatively titled How to Make Love to a Negro (recently re-released with the title finally fully translated to How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired). 

I’ve started a new blog, Chasing Laferrière. It’s a mixture of academic writing, musings, and my own relationship to Laferrière’s writing. 
Bookmark it, like it, tweet it, share it, and keep your eyes open for it over the summer. This site is me, the teacher/general academic. Chasing Laferrière is me, the discipline-specific scholar and self-reflexive; it another facet of who I am and why. I’ll still be posting here over the summer (new weekly feature for the summer, coming soon, after I get back from next week’s conference in Montreal), but I hope you’ll check out Chasing Laferrière from time to time.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Teaching Basic Writing

(Forgive the melodramatic title; I writing this with what I suspect is a mild concussion from a hard driving head-butt from my daughter)

While teaching Basic/Developmental writers can be really rewarding, my Basic Writing class this semester has been particularly trying. More than half the class disappeared. The half that showed up today to hand in their final papers have been missing themselves for much of the semester. I had four students who consistently attended, took the work seriously, and will do well. 

I have students who were taking my class for the second time. They were doing so well, and then they were gone, without a trace. I have students who drank away their first semester, came back looking to save their academic lives, and still couldn’t come to class on a consistent basis. Even the threat of failure (and in the case of many of the students, getting kicked out of school) couldn’t seem to get the students motivated. One of my students, so proud of the fact that his narrative essay was published in his local paper, is now MIA.
What makes it so hard is that I know the students almost all dealing with a lot of issues outside of class. The narrative essay often reveals so much about their lives before coming to my class. One was homeless for a few years. Another is dealing with a physical ailment that kept him home for most of high school. Another lost his baby twins in childbirth. Last semester, one student lost his mother in a house fire. Another was a veteran, trying to get his life back together. I know how much these students have had to overcome in order to be in college to begin with.
But then again, the students who did show up regularly also are dealing with issues. One is pregnant with three other kids at home, all under the age of 10. Another is dealing with legal issues (which, in a wonderful switch, he didn’t feel the need to share with me). Yet another is participating in the very demanding ROTC program. So which group are the exception, and which are the rule? 
I honestly want all of my students to succeed. And while I know that some students ultimately won’t succeed in college, I don’t want it to be because poor preparation and a lack of basic skills is holding them back. I know that my students, at the very least, can be successful in my class if they do the work. Even if they eventually drop out, their writing and basic communication skills will have improved enough to write a basic cover letter. A few of them, in spite of (or maybe because of) how they behaved in my class are planning to take my regular Freshman Writing course in the fall. 
And maybe that’s a victory in and of itself: the student who wants to come back in my class to prove that he or she can do better. The way this semester went, I’ll take it. 

Big Brother or Autonomy and Respect?

Today in the NYT, there appeared two opinion pieces on education reform, The High Cost of Low Teacher Salary and A New Measure for Classroom Quality. They couldn’t be more diametrically opposed in how they propose to improve schools. The first hopes to treat teachers with respect while the second looks to instal Big Brother type measures of a teacher’s effectiveness. Seeing as how it’s May 1, and thus your monthly allotment of 20 free NYT articles has reset, I really encourage you to read both of these important opinion pieces. 

“The Hight Cost of Low Teacher Salary” points out that when war goes wrong, we don’t blame the soldiers, we blame the policy and strategy makers. In teaching, we do the opposite. Reading “A New Measure for Classroom Quality,” we see this attitude in action. The author argues that we should video tape (digitally record?) all teachers and measure how much time the teacher spends on and how closely they follow the prescribed curriculum. The assumption is, once again, that it’s how the teachers teach, not what they teach, that matters. No question if the curriculum developed by politicians, businessmen, and administrators is even worth teaching. 
“A New Measure” also makes classrooms sound miserable. Children should be seen and not heard, and teachers should read from a script. No variation, no deviation, no fun. Now, I’m not saying that learning should always be a joyful experience; it’s hard work. But, this type of learning suits one kind of student and one kind of teacher. This is not the modern reality of the classroom. 
But it shows the fundamental disrespect that teachers receive in this day and age, or at least a fundamental misunderstanding of what teachers do. Not to mention the inherence dangers that come from the recording of what goes on in the classroom, both for the teachers and the students. How can we expect students and teachers to take risks and challenge each other intellectually if we know that what we are saying is being recorded to potentially be used against them later?
Oh, yeah, while critical thinking is on the curriculum, it isn’t really what policy and curriculum makers are looking for from students. If it was, then we wouldn’t be reading op-eds about monitoring a teacher’s every move in the classroom, and we’d have already done what is being recommended in the first piece.

Real-World Experience, Teaching Contingently, and Academia

In my last post, I examined how the stereotype of the cloistered academic is wrong-headed and patently false. I also dealt (albeit briefly) with the idea that students need to eschew such low interests as monetary compensation in the name of “experience” and “application character building.” The post has generated a lot of discussion, both on the post and on Twitter. It would seem that a lot of us out there are sick and tired of our students and the public at large assuming what they do about our professional lives and history.

But I wonder how much of that is a result of our own doing. We are told, repeatedly, not to include any sort of non-academic (or tenuously academic) positions in our job applications. We also need to police our non-academic interests (be it past paid employment or current interests and hobbies) lest we appear unfocused or lacking the dedication necessary to make it as an academic. Never mind that for most of us who are off the tenure track, the second job is a necessity and our hobbies and interests get sidelined because of a lack of time and resources. So when, as an academic, we appear single-minded or narrowly focused in our pursuits, professional or otherwise, we need to take some blame. That’s why I encouraged my colleagues on Twitter (and do so again here) to write their own non-academic professional narratives.

Because it also will help break the notion that we have no idea what we’re doing in the classroom when it comes to teaching students the skills they need in order to secure employment or the accusation that we don’t understand how hard it is out there. Ask the 75% of faculty who aren’t on the tenure track, or any public sector university employee who hasn’t had a raise in years, they’ll tell you they know how hard it is out there. Perhaps this is the reason why we find it so frustrating when our students appear disinterested, disengaged, or just plain lazy in our classes; we know how hard it is out there, and we know that if they keep doing what they’re doing, a BA isn’t going to save them from unemployment.

But back to my first point. Is one of the reasons our students are so skeptical of us is because they don’t understand that we know what it is like, and that the skills (hard or soft) that we are trying to teach them will not only help them succeed in college, but in their future employment? I might not be on the cutting edge of technology, but I do know that learning how to write and communicate well in a variety of circumstances isn’t just a college skill, it’s a life skill. There are very few people out there who can speak to the soft skill of adapting than the writing instructor, often trained in a different field and “forced” out of necessity to teach writing, not to mention having to adapt to the constantly shifting reality of the students we teach.

I often wonder why more writing instructors don’t become entrepreneurs, as we have huge skill set and survival techniques well-suited to the volatile role of running your own business. But, then again, I’m still here, teaching Freshmen how to write. My next post for the University of Venus deals with my growing dissatisfaction with being off the tenure-track (look for it, coming soon!), and perhaps the sting is even worse when I consider that I am looked down upon by all comers: the university because I am “only” an instructor and the public at large because I am an out-of-touch professor. I belong in both worlds, but am accepted by neither.

That’s a depressing way to end my day.

The Real World: My Pre-Academic Jobs

There is a persistent image that many undergraduates (or, more accurately, the public at large) have about professors, that we, locked away in our ivory tower, have no idea what it is like in the “real world” where people really work (as opposed, I guess, to pretending to work?).

There has also been quite a lot of talk recently about the value of internships, especially the kind where students have to pay to participate and don’t see any money in return. And, as college admissions seasons have came and went, there has been a deluge of hang wringing about how high school students can no longer afford to work, lest their college application not reflect the right kind of values and experiences.

I have been working since I was 10 years old (crap, here she goes). I started with a paper route (mind you, it was only for our weekly local paper, but still) that I inherited from a friend. I moved on to babysitting, found through hand-made fliers that my mom graciously copied at work (I colored them afterwards, too). These jobs didn’t pay much, but they were enough to keep a 10-13 year old in Tiger Beat magazines and cassettes. 

I also did some unpaid work at that time, via a quasi-internship program run by the city, Leaders in Training/Leaders of Tomorrow. I wanted to be a lifeguard, and this was how the city (who ran the pools) helped prepare us for our eventual job as lifeguards (or park attendants). Basically, we got to do all the nasty jobs (like clean out the gutters) that the lifeguards didn’t want to do. It was sort-of terrible, but that was outweighed by the fact that it meant you got to hang out in the office with the lifeguards who were all older and impossibly cool. That was worth a lot of dead bugs.

Now, a few words on lifeguarding, my first real job. To all those college admissions people who think that lifeguarding equals lazy, I’m here to tell you, you’re dead wrong. At least where we grew up, lifeguarding meant not only sitting on a chair in the sun, it also meant that you had to coach a water sport (diving, swimming, synchro, or water polo), teach swimming lessons, organize the competitions for the sport you coached, and organize community events to be held at the pool. Sometimes, we also had to do fund-raisers. At the age of 16. No one working at the pools were usually older than 21 or 22, and they were manager. These were not insignificant jobs with no responsibilities. And, trust me, when the patrons weren’t happy with the job you were doing, they let my bosses at City Hall know (being how my salary was paid by their taxes and all that).

But even if lifeguarding only consists of sitting up on that chair, know that that job is one that is a matter of life and death. If someone is drowning, has a stroke, a heart attack, has a severe allergic reaction, etc, it is our responsibility to save them. We’re trained to do that. It’s one of those jobs where it doesn’t look like you’re doing much until you are called upon to act. And then, you’d best act. I’ve had to clear the pool for one spinal (which is stressful because one wrong move and the person could be paralyzed), and it was frightening. We might not always have to put our knowledge into practice, but if something were to go wrong, lifeguards (at least the ones I grew up with) are professional, capable, and still in their teens.

Kids, you can quote me on that one, too.

I learned some valuable lessons. I had to show up for work, on time, or suffer the consequences. I was once suspended for a week because I missed staff training (this precious little snowflake simply forgot). And so, I didn’t work for a week, lost the wages, and had to deal with the ire of my staff-mates who had to make up my shifts. I learned how to deal with the public, think on my feet, and get my head out of my own ass. I remembered how much I looked up to the lifeguards who coached me, so I knew the responsibility I had to my swimmers. I’m not saying I didn’t do stupid things, but I owned up to them, took my licks, and moved on. I also learned that it is really, really hard to work with friends, especially when they are your boss.

When I went to university, I chose my program, in part, because built into the program were paid internships. Our tuition money paid for an entire department devoted to finding related and relevant jobs and job experience. They had to be directly related to our major (professional writing) and they had to pay. We did pay a nominal amount of tuition during our work terms, but it was nowhere near full tuition and was easily covered by the salaries we were earning. I had applied and been accepted into a much more prestigious journalism program in large part because I wasn’t about to work at unpaid internships.

When I was 14, my parents divorced. I still swam competitively, and much of the costs became my responsibility. I loved lifeguarding, but I needed to work in order to pay for swimming and any other activity I wanted to do. University was no different; I was paying my own way, and I couldn’t afford to take summers or semesters off to get coffee and not make any money. While I understood that an unpaid internship was a “foot in the door,” if there was an option on the table where I would get paid, well, there really wasn’t a choice.

And this is where the discussion about voluntourism, unpaid internships, and the college admissions game gets me really, really rilled up. While I am fortunate that I never had to work retail or in fast food, I nonetheless had to earn my keep. I had to work (although I would have anyway, probably). I think, as valuable as unpaid internships may be, they are exploitative and unfair because they favor those students who can afford to not make any money. Summers in the developing world building houses is great, but that wasn’t going to pay for school.

I think that the people who are disconnected from the “real world” aren’t academics, but the people who think that unpaid work and luxury volunteer opportunities are what build character. I think the same people who think lifeguards are lazy are the same people who think academics are lazy. My real world is a lot more real than you think.

Lesson Learned: Using Corkboard.me and Letting Go of Lecturing

My 100-level students are currently reading and writing about the future. I’ve been depressing them with apocalyptic and dystopic visions of our world, starting with Fahrenheit 451 and ending with the short films at http://futurestates.tv/. Don’t worry, there were some essays in between, like if Google is making us stupid, why we love robots, or how living longer impacts our morality. Yup, it’s been a real happy time over the past two months, culminating in the creation of a persuasive essay on their vision of the future.


Taking comPOSITION’s advice, I used corkboard.me for brainstorming ideas about the essay and then about how they thought they could best persuade their audience about their vision for the future. I have to say, I was blown away by the results (which you can see here). They all not only had clear ideas about the future, but they also had clear ideas about how to write their essay. I had nothing to add. Class dismissed.


If I had done the same thing in the classroom, I know I wouldn’t have received half the answers that are now living on corkboard. Because it is anonymous and spontaneous, students were free to try, fail, and post again. Usually I write their answers on the board, but they have to be willing to share them. Usually, they just wait for me to give them the answer. And, seeing as how I can’t stand silences, I’ll answer the question myself. But this experience has really forced me to realize that I don’t need to lecture as much as I do, and in fact I am potentially wasting my students’ (and my) time by telling them things they already know. 


This is not a minor revelation. I’ve now realized that over the summer I need to find a way to more fully incorporate corkboard, twitter, blogs, and other social media tools in order to not just engage my students, but get an accurate snapshot of what they know so I can spend my time on things they don’t. It allows me to finally turn my classroom into a more dynamic space of give and take between myself and the students. The challenge becomes when I don’t have regular or consistent access to a computer lab in order to use these technologies. 


Thankfully, I have all summer to figure this out. And while I knew I lectured too much, I don’t think the practical reality of that knowledge really influenced how I approached teaching. So, thank you corkboard.me for making me reexamine my teaching and ultimately improving my approach to the classroom. 

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

Dilettante, Generalist, or Unfocused? Teaching and Research Tensions

Conference season is upon us academics. I’ll be going back to Sherbrooke in a few weeks to present a piece of my dissertation, investigating how a translator and editor worked together to produce a collection of translated poems. I just presented last weekend on Dany Laferrière’s practice of rewriting his novels, specifically looking at the transformation of La chair du maitre into Vers le Sud. This summer, I’m working an essay on how Nalo Hopkinson uses the female body in her speculative fiction. 

Oh, and I teach writing. 
I’ve recently become more acutely aware of how my “research output” reflects my image of a scholar (both a teacher and researcher). Should I be moving more towards presenting and publishing on teaching writing, as that is where my professional career seems to be heading? Should I try to find more English authors to study and write about as I teach English? Can I indulge my growing interest in digital humanities, with the limited resources at my disposal (time and money)?
The question of resources is not a trivial one. I do not have a great deal of travel support, and it is expensive to fly anywhere from where I currently live. I teach a 5/4 course load, all of which are writing intensive. I had to cancel going to THATCamp, an experience I had been particularly looking forward to, because it was hard to justify the expense. My past training, publications, and current teaching don’t scream digital humanities; why do I need to change directions, yet again?
I get bored very easily, and I like to have lots of ball up in the air, mentally. When I get burnt out from writing about the middle-aged menopausal body as magical, I can move to how and why an author rewrites his life story. And then, if I can focus on either of those topics, I can comb through the new thoughts related to my dissertation in an effort to change it into a book. And then, on a break, I revise and refine my writing courses.
When I was hired for my (brief) tenure-track position, it was as a generalist, a role I felt well-suited for. Intro to lit or world lit? A PhD in comparative literature certainly prepares you for that. Postcolonial? Got it. Immigrant writing? Got it. Minority? Got it. Popular? Got it. Teaching experience, especially with non-traditional student populations? Yup, got that, too. While looking for my first tenure-track job, I was most successful with the generalist jobs I had applied for. I can imagine that my research and interests were either too diverse (or, too focused on one or two authors) for a more specialized position. 
There is a thread that connects all of my interests, however, and that’s the process and results of writing. If it be translating, rewriting, or imagining, it seems to always come back to writing.  Even my MA thesis, concerned with magical dystopias, is essentially about books that are making clear arguments about the (possible) future. How do we shape and reshape ourselves and the world around us through language? I suppose this is what we are all doing in literature, but I wonder how many of us would describe what we do in such general terms? We are often sent the message in academia that our research and teaching be hyper-specialized, or at least unique. I know that what I am doing is unique, but perhaps I haven’t stuck with any one subject long enough to become hyper-specialized, and thus well-known, in order to become a “successful” academic.
I expressed my thoughts and apprehensions on a recent post on Dr. Davis’ Teaching College English blog. Her thoughtful response:

I figure, I may never be “the” expert on a field, but I can have multiple important contributions to a number of disparate studies.

This, ultimately, is what I aspire to. I might never be an expert in any one area (although I’ll wager there are few other academics who have devoted as much time and mental energy on Dany Laferriere as I have), I want to and can have multiple contributions in a lot of different areas. It might not ultimately benefit my career, but I’m doing what I love. For that, I am grateful, even if I do look a bit like the academic equivalent of a flake.

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