Autumn
Our bedroom window looks out over the river, though this time of year the leaves of the maple trees mostly screen our view of the water. This morning I woke around six-thirty and looked out at the trees bathed in soft morning light. The leaves are turning orange now, though there is still quite a [...]
Decline
This site, which used to be funny, has become a leper colony of bitterness & bad writing. And anyone who would put up a link to a David Horowitz book on the site (without balancing it with this text or this one) simply does not have the best interests of the teaching profession in mind. [...]
End of Term Blues
Just finished grading my last set of papers & now I’m on sabbatical until next September. The papers brought me up short, I must admit. They were from a freshman class and we had finished the semester reading Margret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake, a very smart & entertaining book, I think. My students seemed to [...]
Observation
At the end of each semester, our departmental majors present the work they have done in their required research seminar. The subjects are wide-ranging because we are an interdisciplinary department the focus is on research methodology rather than subject matter. Earlier this week I attended this semester’s presentations. I had to leave a bit [...]
RYS Turns Three
That’s Rate Your Students for those of you not in the know. Started by a frustrated college professor in response to the site that shall not be named, RYS allows academics to tell horror stories about their students, from the precious snowflake who just can’t possibly get anything less than an A to the smelly [...]
How to Read a Poem*
Instructions: Begin, in so far as it’s possible, without preconceptions and do not rush to make a judgment about whether you like or dislike a poem, or whether it’s good or bad; most of all, do not dismiss mysteries or difficulties as weird or incomprehensible (at least) until you have worked through the steps [...]
Mixed Blessings
So I’m sitting around at home this morning looking out on the kind of beautiful fall morning that would usually pull me outdoors. My favorite yard chores are autumn yard chores. But I’m sitting inside because I picked up a head cold & sore throat at school. Colleges are viral breeding grounds. I just don’t [...]
Students’ Reading
When my students read a poem or story, they invariably create suppositions about the characters / plot to flatten out ambiguities. They are very uncomfortable with ambiguities. I was using the Lucinda Williams song “Changed the Locks” yesterday in creative writing to demonstrate parallel syntax & repetition. (I’ll get to Whitman, traditionalists need not hyperventilate.) [...]
It Begins
Whether I’m ready or not, school begins on Monday. More than most years, I have been putting off getting ready. Partly this is simply knowing already pretty much what I’ll be doing — the classes I’m teaching are ones I’ve taught many times before — but I’ve also finally begun to clarify for myself the [...]
Teaching Freshman Composition
William Major had a good column at Inside Higher Ed last week & surprisingly the comment thread generated by Major’s essay is intelligent & civil. (IHE has the most persistent anti-intellectual right-wing trolls on the internet — interesting as an anthropological study, but deeply dispiriting for regular reading.) Major’s main contention is that more full [...]
keep looking »