Community College Essays on Job Apps

So, this job market season, I encountered something I never have before, and I love it.
Community colleges are asking you to answer detailed questions, like what is the first assignment you'd give and why? How do you deal with students who are struggling? What, other than your departmental responsibilities, would you like to be involved with on campus and in our community?

The other day I posted about how teaching statements don't do what they should-- they act like a list of cool things your students did rather than identifying what the teacher values, so people could more completely answer if the teacher is a good fit.
These questions, which frankly, everyone should be asking, are a much better way to get to know the kind of teacher you're hiring than anything else. And I LOVE them.

The application I'm working on today had this prompt:

It is the third week of school in your English 1A class, College Composition. The first paper has been submitted. After grading the papers, you realize that one-third of the class is below college level in their reading and writing. Write a three-page, double-spaced, essay explaining what steps you would take to help all of the students meet the course objectives and succeed.

This prompt starts at the end, so I want to explain all the steps I take in my classroom before this ending, that are designed to ensure that if students are struggling, I know well before they turn in anything, and have tailored class to support them. I don’t deviate here to be cheeky, but to make it clear that it would never be the first assignment before I realized the level of my students. The very first day I ask them to write for me, about their previous experiences in English, what they want, what they feel they need help with. I then tailor our lessons, our readings, our classes, around these answers. I believe that these steps are just as important, if not more important, than how I respond to the final product.

In my classes, whether they are developmental, composition, or literature, a key objective is to give the students the skills they need to be successful. This means that the lessons and activities I design in class teach and model the skills they need to produce their assignments. This includes but is not limited to examining model papers, creating organizers, working in class with dialectical journals to learn how to respond to textual evidence, crafting a thesis, and using introductions to outline essays. In addition to this approach, I also rely on writing workshops in my class. In my composition classes there are three major writing assignments, and each major writing assignment has two low stakes assignments that are the parts of the major writing assignment. So for example, if the major writing assignment is a position paper, the first low stakes assignment might be an “I believe” piece where students identify their stance on the topic, while the second low stakes assignment might be responding to the counter argument. This approach means students receive feedback on the smaller pieces of the major assignment, and have time to improve and revise it, before writing the larger assignment. This results in students doing better on the major writing assignments, but it also breaks down the skills students need into smaller, more manageable parts.  On these smaller assignments I make marginal comments, holistic comments, as well as use color coding-- what they did right is green, some things to reconsider or look at again is yellow, and things to focus on is red. This targeted response narrows what they need to focus on so they don’t get overwhelmed, and is easy to “read” for students who may struggle with English conventions because they are ELL learners, or who entered college with some skill deficiencies.

The week before any writing assignment is due, large or small, the students come to class with drafts of their work and peer edit. They learn to see writing as a continually evolving process, not a one and done item. Also, students can often see issues in other people’s work that they can’t see in their own. The students peer edit, and I answer questions during the workshop, as well as responding to all drafts. The students also learn how to use Google Docs, and collaborate in real time. In addition to this, if, after the writing workshop and feedback from me and their peers they want to send me another draft, even if it’s just a redone intro or body paragraph, I tell them I’ll look at any of this, in addition to answering questions, up to 24 hours before the final draft is due.

This system means that I know from the beginning where my students are, and how best to serve them. No student wanders through a third of class and then is surprised by a bad grade. The same holds true for the reading in class. I choose a variety of readings, based on student interests, as much as possible. I also teach them a variety of methods for responding to texts, and model them in class. I offer the students options, so they can try out different things, and find out what works best for them. The students learn to annotate, use online resources, take notes, identify important facts and details, as well as respond using things like dialectical journals. As with the writing, we do this work in class so I can see how the students do with the reading, and can intervene right then.

In my classses I always have two different approaches for feedback on writing that work together, interventions that will help individual students and interventions for the class as a whole, for improving papers. As I grade papers, I always keep a running list of errors, misunderstandings, or skills that are lacking, so that I can address them in class. If there are areas that a majority of the class needs help with, I use this list to create mini-lessons for the entire class. Ideas and concepts that might be covered are writing a good thesis, organization, using support, etc.  In addition to integrating these mini-lessons into whole group class writing workshops, I also add materials to my One Note writing notebook of resources that the class has access to, so they have it for reference. I also make all my lessons, resources, and models available through a hyperlinked Google Doc syllabus so students can always look back and find the things they need.

For the individual students, I use copious margin feedback on their papers that focuses on asking them questions, designed to guide their thinking, rather than a list of complaints, or comments that could be read as harsh. I also provide holistic feedback at the end of papers about my overall impression of the paper, and I try to focus on what was done right, as well as what are areas to improve. I next ask students to meet with me to discuss the notes, so I can make sure they understood the notes but most importantly that they know how to proceed. Students in my classes can always choose to rewrite their assignments for a higher grade, so understanding and internalizing the notes are important. In all my classes I think it is important to know who your students are, teach them where they are, intervene early and often, listen to them when they say they need help and what they need help with, and create an environment where they feel comfortable using me as a resource.

Thinking About Violence and Affect in Television and Films: Warning- gory images

The past few weeks I have gotten sucked into bingeing Vikings.
I remember trying to watch it a year or so ago and I just couldn't get into it.

But maybe it's because a friend is working on a chapter about the tattoos in Vikings, or maybe it's because I know actual medievalists work on the Old English and Old Norse, but I started the first episode on Amazon, and have raced my way through to season 4, DVRing season 5 as it's premiered.

I have not always been super attentive when watching. I found myself spacing out in some of the battle scenes. In part, because this type of uber-violence is not something that appeals to me. But I kept noticing that I could not ignore the violence in the show. I could not space out during the fights, the battles.

THE BATTLES ARE THE POINT.

This is not mindless violence. This is not the violence of Watchmen, or Sin City, or Kill Bill, or so many others, where it rarely is part of the narrative and too often seems like just violence for violence's sake. As though all these directors are trying to one up each other to see HOW gory, HOW violent, HOW far they can push it all.

That is what a lighting designer I used to work for calls "artistic masturbation" and it does not appeal to me.
But that is not how the violence in Vikings functions. It is not devoid and separate from the context and the narrative, IT IS the context for the narrative.
Much like the tattoos on the characters show growth and change, advancement, so too do their scars. The violence they live through, or not, defines them, marks their journey. These are not violent events just to showcase special effects, these are glorified versions of their lives.

At the same time that I have been watching Vikings, I had a chapter for an edited collection to write. The chapter analyzes the folkloric devil in The Last Temptation of the Christ and The Passion of the Christ as representative of who was demonized in the culture wars that each represents. My analysis required me to sit down and watch both films, taking detailed notes. Because I started work on this before finishing and submitting the dissertation, then set it aside, I found it a bit hard to come back to this, figure out how to write, how to THINK again.
I think one of the issues I had was that I knew I was going to have to sit down and watch The Passion of the Christ again. And I find it hard.

I love horror films. LOVE them. The gore does not bother me, never has, not even films that fall into the "torture porn" genre.
But I have a really hard time watching Passion. Like want to watch some parts through my fingers, flinch, hard.
It got me thinking about affect theory, and how the film sets up the violence as an experience, that the audience is called to witness the violence.

In the film, it is not the violence that is the point, but the effect it has on the audience as witness

Along with all of these thoughts, about violence as affect, audience as witness, and context, enters my watching Punisher. 

I used to love the character of Frank Castle. The righteous vigilante who sought justice for his family.
I disliked his appearance in Daredevil because that was not Frank Castle. Frank Castle was shown indiscriminately killing and injuring people in the hospital, and that was not the character I knew and loved.
The stand alone series has mostly ignored that, and has stepped away from that, showing more of the Punisher I know.

But as with many things, it's hard to like the Punisher these days.
The comic character is problematic for the way that an ultra-militant, not-legal, segment of the population has embraced him. The character's arc throughout the comic has become more and more problematic, but the fans who have embraced him are downright terrifying.

More and more, we can't separate symbols from the reception, their affect.
We can't claim ignorance of the impact characters, storylines, have on the culture at large.

So I want to like Frank Castle. I want to empathize with his hurt, his loss.
But the show doesn't let you. He is, by his own confession, complicit in the system, even if he didn't want to be.
He is a creation of the military industrial complex, but he doesn't stop, or get out, and he is given numerous chances to do so.

He does at least seem to recognize that the world does not have a place for him, backing off from those identified as "innocents" in the show.

The violence in the show is presented both as inevitable and avoidable. It is over the top, unnecessary, and symbolic of Castle.

It's easy to look away from the violence in Punisher, to look away, to space out. And I would argue that this is the danger of it. It is totally normalizes. We ACCEPT this level of violence from a white, militant man who sees himself as judge, jury, and executioner. 

I have no big insights into any of these.
Rather, these three things, experienced altogether as they were, seemed worth framing together.

The Hindsight of Research and Teaching Statements

It's 27 December, and just as I took down the tree, put away the ornaments and all the decorations, and took down the lights, it occurs to me that it's time to put away the job market materials as well.

But here's the thing...
I am a teacher. I've been a teacher since I first stepped into my Brooklyn classroom in 2001, I was a teacher before that as I taught and ran light crews as a master electrician in theatre, and I was a teacher when I was a wee one and forced my little sister to be my class as I taught her out of the McGuffey readers we had.
I am a teacher now, of high school students.
There is not a single thing that can make me NOT a teacher.

In a similar manner, I was a scholar before I ever started my PhD program. And I have met some excellent role models in the last few years about the scholarly contributions people outside of the academy make.
In fact, it might be a better fit. If I'm not beholden to a tenure committee, I have ultimate freedom to do MY brand of scholarship- to smash periodization. To explore folklore across genres and disciplines. To talk about the fun stuff.

I did have a thought yesterday though that I wanted to share.

Yesterday, as I was walking Nehi, I thought about teaching. Specifically, I thought about what teaching statements do, and what they don't do. They don't tell the truth. All the advice I see about teaching statements is to be specific about what you do in your classroom, to not speak in generalities To describe specific assignments, why you assign them, what they accomplish, etc. Invariably this looks like a list of cool assignments I've gotten, which is fine, but I think misses the heart of what people should look for in teachers.

But here's the truth:

Too often people with little to no pedagogical experience or training design their classes around their wants and needs, what is easiest for them. Scroll academic Twitter at the end of the semester and you'll see the end result of this. It doesn't appear to work very well, for the professors or the students, but it is a pattern that repeats again and again.
In my first year of teaching I was told to always do what was best for my students, not what was easiest for me. This has remained a guiding principle for how I design classes and interact with my students.
This means that I can't tell you exactly what my classes will be like from semester to semester. My students will be different, their needs and interests will be different. Where they're coming from will be different, so my class will be different.
I will not know when my office hours will be until I poll my students about what hours work best for the majority of them.
I won't know how to tweak the assignments until I see what they get and what they don't YET get.
I won't know what mini-lessons class needs to cover until I see what they need.

I can tell you what I value in a classroom. I can tell you what these values look like in my classroom.

• I believe in equity in my classroom, so I will always work to establish a culture in my classroom where everyone feels that their voices are valued, where they feel comfortable engaging with the text, me, and classmates, and where they can share their interests and insights.
• I believe there is a lot that students need to know to be successful in a classroom, and they're not always taught these things because people assume they already have these skills. So I will always be transparent about what I expect, why I expect it, and offer to model and teach students the hidden skills (professional email, how to use the library, how to evaluate sources, how to paraphrase, what to look for in a reading, how to participate in a class discussion, etc.) they need to be successful.
• I believe in representation, not diversity. So I will always revise and reflect on what I teach to make sure that my students see as much of a whole picture in context as I can. It also means that I will always empower my students to find themselves represented in my class, and empower them to share their research, enriching me and the course. 
• I believe that everyone's interests are valid. So I will always design fairly generic assignments that ask the students to pick their own research interests, to decide what the form should be, and to think about what the assignment should look like based on these things. Students will often struggle with this lack of structure. They are used to having everything laid out, a checklist of requirement. And I get that. But I want them to understand the importance of language, how it shifts and changes for audience and purpose, and I want them to understand how to adapt and change for different purposes.
• I believe in learning, not grades. So I will always encourage students to send me drafts, talk through ideas, and think through the process. It means that I will always leave a ton of comments on a students work, in a way they can read, that asks questions to help them revise, in addition to holistic comments about my overall feelings about the piece. It also means that students will always be allowed to revise their work for a higher grade.
• I believe in helping students will the gaps. So I will always offer help about time management, organization, resources on campus, and issues that women, POC, and first generation students face.
• I believe that my teaching style may not best serve all my students. So I will always check in with my students, informally in class, and more formally through surveys throughout the semester, in order to see how the class feels I'm doing, identify what they may need, and then have a conversation with them about what changes we may need to make, how I can help, and what I may not be able to change and why.

To me, these beliefs more clearly show the kind of teacher I am than me telling you that students turn in sample 16th century pamphlets, or a series of Game of Thrones clips that mimic Shakespearean scenes.

In hindsight, I can tell you why I didn't get a job.

My dissertation work covers medieval and early modern English literature. I did this in part because job market trends the last few years showed that more and more schools that I was interested in, small liberal arts colleges (SLACs) were combining these positions, advertising for a generalist who could do both, so I was well positioned for this. I feel just as confident covering one as the other, so I also applied to separate medieval and early modern positions.

But here's the sticking point-

While my book based on my dissertation covers the political devil in medieval and early modern English literature, the rest of my publications focus on folklore.

• How the folkloric devil functions in The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ
• The folkloric forest as a character in Twin Peaks.
• The Visual Aesthetics of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.
• The Artificial Construction of the NM Folk Hero Elfego Baca.
• Freddy Krueger as the folkloric bogeyman.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Board Game as Liminal Space.
• Analyzing Folkloric Horror Elements in Video Games

For me, what each of these pieces explores, and centers around, is applying a folkloric lens to literature and popular culture. I am interested in how folkloric figures represent the fears, anxieties, and desires of a particular historical and cultural moment. What these representations show us about that time period. How these artificial constructions demonize others and establish a norm. The importance of understanding these ARE artificial constructions. How analyzing folkloric figures across literature, and popular culture, reveals patterns across time periods, genres, and disciplines.

This is the work I think is most interesting, and valuable. But I don't think I explained this well enough in my research statement. I don't think I argued strongly enough for the value of this approach, that pushes folkloric studies past just identifying trends and seeks to historicize them, and interrogate how folklore can be analyzed as a moment in amber of the time. 

I think part of the reason I don't do this well is because I was told throughout my PhD program to back off from the folklore, tone it down, do the work, but don't call it that. But this is the heart of my work. It is the most valuable, unique contribution.

Applying a folkloric lens to literature and popular culture is WHY I study medieval and early modern literature and history- I wanted to trace where these ideas and figures came from. This enables me to take a long view of these figures, to see where they came from, how they change and adapt, and what these changes mean.

But because I followed my own interests, and because I started publishing before I ever started my PhD program, and because I was never advised to publish strategically, I can see how someone would look at my list of publications and think I was unfocused, all over the place, not a contributor to medieval and early modern literary studies.

I get that.

In the same breath that I don't care.

Because I know the value of my work. But I also think in hindsight I could have presented it better.

A few weeks ago Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas (@Ebonyteach) did a great thread on Twitter about the approach, and struggle (?) of figuring out what it is you do, what your brand is, as you move from student to professor. 

This got me thinking about what my brand is. Yes, I am now an expert on the English devil (feel free to send all devil related toys and items my way). But to me, the most important aspect of my work is the aspect that I was told to bury- pushing the boundaries of applying folkloric studies to literature and popular culture. Folklore studies has long been stagnant, stopping at identifying trends, patterns, and figures in literature and popular culture and not pushing past as to HOW these trends, patterns, and figures are vehicles for fears, anxieties, and desires of the current historical and cultural moment. THAT'S where I live. THAT'S my work. THAT'S my contribution.

It is a unique contribution BECAUSE of my medieval and early modern background and training. 

Hindsight is always 20/20.

And I don't know if I will have a chance to revise any of this and go on the job market again. I don't know if I want to.

But I do know that reflecting on who I am as a teacher and a scholar, knowing how I want to contribute, and move forward, is something that will serve me well no matter what the future brings.

Have You Seen My Inspiration? I Seem to Have Lost It

The last couple of months have passed in a bit of a haze.
I've continued to teach at my high school, taught Saturday school, served on my school's instructional council...and not much else.

Part of this I think is sheer exhaustion.
Part of it is, I'm not sure where I go from here.
It's December, and I've heard nothing on jobs, and part of me isn't really sure what the point is.
I purposely didn't look at many conferences this year because I'll have to pay for all of them out of pocket, and high school teachers don't get anything for them (in fact, I'll be docked the days I take), and if there's no higher ed job, what's the point?

I'm kinda feeling the same way about scholarly work.

What is the point if I'm just going to end up being a high school teacher?

I have a book chapter on biblical epics due by the end of the year that's mostly done.

There's a CFP on medieval chronicles that I really want to do something for- a riff on Macbeth and how Shakespeare changed the chronicle sources to make nationalistic arguments about the dangers of rebelling.
I am editor of a Tiny Collection for Material Collective called #MedievalMarks. The drafts are due to me by the end of the year, and I'll read and give notes and turn around in January.

I have my ShakeAss paper to revise to present in March.
I have a short roundtable piece to draft for Kzoo about pedagogy and my "Dark Devil as Basis For Racist Shit"* paper (*not actual title, although maybe it should be) was rejected from the panel I submitted it for but was accepted for general, so yeah! And I've been percolating on these ideas, so that will be easy.
I also have my notes on FOX's Exorcist to turn into a presentation.

I have a couple of longer, more researched blog posts I want to do. One is my supposed story- my hypothesis of why the English devil is dark and animalistic (it's because of imported Norse mythology and folklore) and why I can't prove it...yet. I'd like to think it will become a much larger piece, perhaps even a book that analyzes the roots of English folklore by tying to maps of monasteries and manuscripts.

But for now, I have this...

As for scholarly work, I have a book contract for the dissertation as book project. So, I am jotting notes in my notebook about large scale revisions, which I will start this summer. One big change is the insertion of a pamphlet chapter, partially based on the original dissertation, but mostly not. It examines how the dark, folkloric devil was used as political rhetoric from 1642-1660 in English pamphlets. I didn't receive any notes from committee of things to consider when turning the diss into a book, so I'm on my own with that, but I also feel like I have a clear idea of where I want the book to go, so I guess I'm okay.
I have an article, an expansion of last year's Kzoo tattoo paper, that applies theory about heavily tattooed women to the narratives of medieval saints written on their body in the Katherine group. I've done the close readings, and the research, but it all needs to be pulled together.
I have an idea, that also came out of the original diss, about writing about different medieval Merlin tales as conversion narratives.

I also have a ridiculously ambitious digital project based on my original dissertation.

It would be an online resource that tracked every literary appearance of the devil in English literature.
The home page would be dominated at the top by a scrolling time line of images and titles. If you click on the image it would provide a brief synopsis, links to the text (online if available, library links if not), and links to the major scholarship.
Side menu pages would deal with categories the devil fits in, and provide analysis of the meaning and significance of these groupings.
It is a huge project that I'd love to pair with a more web savvy person than myself, perhaps a grad student who would like the project credit? But I also think that it wouldn't be ridiculous to get off the ground, and I'd love the chance to learn more.
Once the foundation is there, I can add and build onto it. But I think it would be a great resource, one I'd also ideally like to test run with a class on this, and a way to use all that work I did for the original diss.

So, easily, a year? Maybe two? Of publications and projects to work on. Which is good, right? I mean, I've never been someone who worries that they don't have more work in them.

I published half of my publication credits while teaching high school full time, and teaching for an online high school, and adjuncting at the community college. I published the other half while finishing my doctorate. So clearly, I CAN juggle. I COULD do this.

But here's the thing. I love all these projects. I am excited about researching them, presenting them, writing them.
But if I'm going to be a high school teacher, and not a college professor, then there is absolutely no sense in me doing any of them.
None.
Zero.
Zip.

It's December 11th. There have been no job contacts. No phone interviews. No invitations to Skype. Which means there will be no campus visits, or interviews, or jobs. I put this out on social media and promptly got the- "it's early," "plenty of jobs post late," " I got..." and I just deleted the post. Because I didn't want to hear it. I'm 41 and 3/4. I do not have the time or energy for pie in the sky wishes and dreams.
So I have decisions to make.

I've signed a contract to turn the diss into a book, so I'll do that.
I'll easily complete the chapter on biblical epics.
I'll just as easily finish the conference presentations for the spring.
Editing the Tiny Collection will be fun, but nothing anxiety producing.

But I find myself treading water on the rest.
YES, of course, I think all the rest of the scholarly projects are interesting, and contribute to the field, and I like. But if I'm a high school teacher, there's no reason to do them. In fact, doing them means maybe I'm not picking up the extra Saturday schools to make rent, or my student loan payment.

Plus, isn't continuing to present at conferences, and write articles, just self-flagellation?

Honestly, I have six publications (half journals, half edited collections), sixteen years teaching experience, over a dozen of conference presentations, and a book contract. If I didn't get a job this year, there's nothing that will change that in the next year.
So why bang my head against that wall?

And maybe that's the thing. The thing Kelly Baker talks about so eloquently in Grace Period, the difficulty in letting go. Because it doesn't happen all at once. It's not a clean break. It's saying goodbye to the actual- the teaching job, the place at university. And then it's letting go of the more intangibles- what it's like when you don't have to build a calendar around getting conference papers accepted, so you can turn them into articles or chapters, so you can stay on the hampster wheel of publishing at least one thing a year.
It means not defining yourself by your scholarly publications.
It means that you don't need to keep up with the reading, the book reviews, the list-servs, or Twitter, to stay on top of all the current conversations in my field.

A lot of time post-diss I think is spent figuring out what comes next.
What life is like now that it's all done.
Some of these are big things- how do I want to brand myself as a scholar, how do I juggle responsibilites.
But other ones are just as big, but more basic. How do I pay rent? Where do I want to live? What do I want my life to be?

At this point, I don't know. But I guess I'll figure it out.