Future Plans

Most teachers I know are reflective folks, using the end of the semester to honestly look at what worked, what didn't, what to toss, cut down, revise.

Most teachers I know also will swear that the new year starts in August and not January.

I don't disagree.

But as the days get shorter and shorter, and dark at 450p has me longing for bed, it's easy to think about the year ending, the world turning, to think about what has happened and try and peer into the future.

Some students the other day asked to interview me, and one of the things they asked me was what I hoped for for next semester. And I keep thinking of that. 

There are still over 400 people dying every day of Covid. Some places and cities seem to half-heartedly be asking politely and quietly if people will start wearing masks again but no one seems to be listening. Only 13% of the population is up to date on their vaccinations and boosters. Racist cops are still killing Black men and women with impunity. Queer and Asian and Jewish folks are still being attacked, live in fear and danger. Extreme white supremacists and the barely hiding it politicians and public figures that support them seem determined to get people killed with their hate speech and rhetoric.

The world is awful.

It's been awful.

There does not seem to be an end in sight to any of it. 

New York City is going to cut staff and locations for the New York Public Library because of budget cuts. But their police department is the biggest and most expensive in the country. Their spending will exceed $11 BILLION.

There are politicians who voted AGAINST protecting same-sex marriage.

The Voting Rights Act has been gutted, and recent runoff Georgia elections were held up as proof that democracy worked but the long lines, the delays in mostly minority neighborhoods told a different story.

There are public figures arguing we shouldn't make sure public school children are fed.

Books that serve our most vulnerable students are being banned by small minded, bigoted people who have nothing but hate in their heart.

For some more than others, it continues to be dangerous, deadly even, to leave your house.

So when those students asked me what I hoped for next semester, I mentioned some of this. That the world is an awful place. That the last couple of years have fundamentally broken my belief in the people as collective working for the greater good. But that my students always kept a small kernel of belief alive. That despite all the awful I still had hope that next semester will be better.

What does the future in THIS world look like?

Does every possible system- healthcare, education, infrastructure, just barely keep going until there is the end of the cascade of collapse? Until people are too disabled or dead to keep the economy or anything else going?

What is the end game to just letting people be disabled, to die? What is the logic? Is the capitalistic life the holiday commercials sell this time of year really worth this body count?

I honestly do not understand, have not been able to understand, the end game.

And amongst all this I've been prepping my tenure portfolio.

I had great support from Twitter academics last year in drafting and prepping my 3rd year review. Folks were so generous with their time, looking at drafts of my statements, offering advice. I am so grateful. Last year I was a nervous wreck putting together all the documents and artifacts. I was so anxious about not being renewed, losing my job. I printed and prepped back up plans. I cried, a lot, when I contemplated what I was going to do. It was a lonely, frightening, awful time.

But then I was renewed. And I really only had two pieces of feedback- why did I not present at conferences anymore/lately...

And why did I publish chapters in edited collections rather than journal articles.

So this year I focused on applying to present to online conferences and was/am excited to present at two. But I also wrote in my narrative that in my first year I hadn't planned on presenting because I didn't want to be away from campus and the last couple of years it was a combination of the dangers of Covid in traveling, conferences that became superspreader events, the ethics of traveling with climate change, and the issues with traveling to and supporting certain places.

This semester I wanted to take the two articles that I have in progress and finish them and send them off. But once again I taught an overload and every semester seems harder than the last. The trauma is cumulative. The stress and anxiety continues. The world continues to be awful. I got more Guardian ad Litem cases and the semester just flew by. There just wasn't any time.

So while I do wish I'd gotten to those and hope maybe over break of in the spring I can make time to get them both done, I have enough of a publication record both before I got here and now to meet the tenure requirements here so I think I'm okay.

Because of the positive response to my 3rd year review, having good yearly evals every year, I was not nervous this semester putting together the tenure portfolio. We do ours in Interfolio and I have done a good job the last three and a half years of saving and keeping artifacts so the most time intensive was uploading documents and renaming so they made sense. I felt good about the documentation. THen I needed to revise my narratives to both update them and add headings so that it was easy to match the narrative to the artifacts. I also had to write a new one for service. I felt good about all of it.

This process got me thinking about what my future is here. What my post-tenure plans are. 

I was explicit in my narratives with the phrase "If I am awarded tenure..." because honestly, if I don't get tenure, I will need to find another job, that job will be teaching high school English, and I won't publish anymore. So I am both excited about the chance to dedicate full time my energy to my book project and resigned that nothing about that may see the light of day.

We've suggested an English Education Concentration, and I have some things I really would love to do with this. I've talked to our program coordinator and department chair about with the renovation setting up a dedicated classroom in our building that I can set up like a high school classroom, use to teach our English Education class, and use as a learning lab, resource. I'm interested in seeing if we can offer internships for these students who want to be high school teachers as tutors in the writing center, as TAs to our GE English classes. Hands on teaching experience can be hard to get, but these are both ways I could get our students experience. I'd like to codify some of the things we sometimes do now for our majors who want to be high school teachers.

But I am not putting a lot of work into these things this year, or rather, the semester we have left. 

Because I have a habit of going all in on projects, doing all this extra, outside work for something only to have whatever powers that be not move forward with a project or nothing coming of it. A lot of times I do this because my brain needs to work on something RIGHT AWAY. Often it is because teaching, lesson planning, pedagogy, all comes easy to me so it's easy for me to do. And a lot of it is due to twenty plus years, a whole career of being told by others that "of course" I have time for this because I am not married and don't have kids.

Most of the time I don't mind volunteering for stuff. Especially if it's something that is easy for me. But a lot of the time I say yes to something because I feel I have to, have to prove my worth, have to stay busy, have to in order to keep my job, and that knee jerk answer often results in hard schedules, stressful days down the road. 

So I'm trying with all things to be more mindful. To only put energy towards things I believe in, where my time is of good use. Where I can see the benefit. To ASK questions before I say yes about what's involved, what the goals and mission are.

I have complicated feelings about this reflection, this stance, because there's the cliche about professors getting tenured and then checking out. 

I have no intention to stop teaching, volunteering, researching, serving.

But I have been thinking long-term what my life looks like here if I am awarded tenure.

I have always had to hustle in my jobs. I have always felt precarious. I have never felt safe. Secure. I have never NOT worried about how to pay bills, how to make it to the next year. I have lived a whole life totally focused just on putting one foot in front of another.

I am 46.

And if I get tenure, it will be the first time I will feel stable long-term. I was starting to feel stable in Albuquerque in my high school teaching job and probably would have gotten there, but then I uprooted everything, I moved here. And I started all over again.

I have seen a lot of scholars on Twitter share their tenure stories. Awful stories that prove academia is not a meritocracy. Wonderful stories of support systems and collectives holding people up. Thoughtful reflections that academia is a marathon not a sprint, and yet grad school only teaches the sprint, that it is hard to fight against that and retrain for the marathon.

I love my students here. I love teaching here. I have been very clear that I have no intention of leaving. I would really love the opportunity to be here long-term and make long-term plans, set down roots for long-term programs. Build on community connections I've already made.

But I'd also love some time to breathe. To be more strategic in what I put time and energy towards. To feel safe enough to say no without worrying about being fired.

The tenure portfolios are due 20 January. But we're back 4 January and classes start back 11 January, so I did not want to be frantic or feel rushed those first couple of weeks back. I always like to clear the decks before we're back so I can focus all my attention on the students and those first impressions. I had a plan this semester, a schedule for when each section's artifacts needed to be updated, when to revise narratives, and it ensured that I got everything done but never felt rushed. All my stuff was uploaded before we wound down the end of the semester. The only thing I had left was revising and updating my narratives and I finished that today.

So I submitted my portfolio.

My hope and plan was that it meant I could actually rest the next three weeks, that I could recover from yet another busy and hard semester. 

Higher ed is a weird business. It's strange that so many people never know what they're doing from one semester to the next. Or that those of us lucky enough to get steady jobs still face precarity year to year with contracts, every three years with reviews, at tenure, promotion. It is hard to build support systems and programs when so many of your folks may not be there next month, next semester. I know a lot of places have faced a lot of turnover the last few years, some by choice and some not. I know a lot of places are paring down, shutting down, whole departments or colleges that just no longer exist anymore.

Yet academics are evaluated on what they accomplish, produce, bring in. Hard to do under great conditions. Ridiculous under the last few years.

So hope and the future are odd things to contemplate.

Grad school certainly has no conversations about this, about what happens after you get the job, how you keep the job, what keeping the job takes, what comes next.

So I'm not sure what my future looks like.

I hope I get to stay here.

I love my house. I am grateful for my wetland woods. I love my Guardian work. Under ridiculous circumstances, I think I've against all odds, managed to start a life here. I'd like to continue to build on it. I'd like to not feel rushed, pressured, scared, about what all comes next.

So as everyone's year ends and begins, as people reflect on where they are and what comes next, I hope the future is better, whatever that looks like for you. That is my wish for you.

If Only I Can Get This Syllabus Right I Can Fix All the World's Problems

Usually by week 12 of the semester I've roughed out my syllabuses for the next semester. In part this is practicality, our textbook orders are due mid-October, and even though almost all my classes have open access texts as a foundation I do still have in some upper level English classes a monograph or text. I like having the majority of the syllabuses done, because then in the final weeks as an idea or reading occurs to me I can tweak and add. Years ago I switched to a live Google Doc syllabus which makes all this possible, both before the semester and during.

But that last month of the semester is always when I feel the worst. Around midterms students start to not come. The number grows as the semester continues. I often end up with 5ish students in class the last day. This is not a Covid thing, although I'm sure that has not helped, but I encountered this issue my first semester, it happens every semester, and no matter how I design the class, what policies I have, the numbers don't change. 

I used to divide my composition classes into four modules, in a sixteen week semester, roughly four weeks for each module. We did practice scaffolding assignments in each module that built to a product the students created at the end. I used to do final portfolios at the end of the semester but in a lot of ways these seemed to set students up to fail. My classes are all face to face, and I run my class like workshops, so we do almost all the work in class. Policies are designed to give students grace and space if they need it, get sick, have an emergency. But my classes are not ones where work easily moves online, and certainly is not a class where you can miss for 5, 6, 7, 8 weeks and pass. You simply miss too much instruction and workshop time.

While my class policies have been the same for years with small tweaks, I have not taught my classes the same from one semester to a next. I use student feedback to change things, I theme my comp classes, I change readings, so each semester is different. I've been trying to work on finding a format, design, that works for my students and then just tailor the readings. Students choose their own topics for writing, so that works out. 

Last year it seemed like the low stake assignments that led to a major writing assignment general approach I've been using for years, was not working. Mainly because while the LSAs were important to do well on the MWAs, keeping up with them seemed a trap to students, got them behind. And with four modules, the majority only showed up for three, and putting narrative as the fourth, something "fun" didn't work, because it required students to read and discuss, and that didn't happen. So this semester I designed class to have a research report due before midterms, with time to revise for a higher grade if they wanted, that we'd spend all those weeks working the parts of, but for practice and feedback not a grade. Then students would revisit the research report, use the information in it, to create a presentation that argued for a change based on the work. My thinking was this would cover the research skills the students needed from comp, but the second half of the semester was not new work per se but was revisiting/repackaging the information they had. And a presentation a little bit of fun.

Nothing changed. 

I still spent last week emailing all the students who didn't turn it in reminding of final deadline. I spent yesterday emailing everyone again a reminder of yesterday's final deadline.

In my Monday classes I had maybe six students. In my classes yesterday I had one in my first and four in my second. Last week many students told me they were traveling this week and wouldn't be here. Others told me they were not coming to class next week.

Now, part of this is the schedule- two days of class before a break, then back for three days before being off for two reading days, with exams the next week is hard. If students are traveling, coming back for so little time is expensive, especially with many classes offering online classes. I get it. And our fall semester usually falls this way. But the spring semester does not and there are the same issues.

Part of my problem is that the students I need to ask what happened, how to help, don't answer emails, and aren't in class to ask. I don't have enough data to do anything. Now, I can make some educated guesses. I would guess that the reasons students stop coming, stop doing the work around midterms are interconnected. They don't feel comfortable asking for help or don't think they should need help. I know this much from my check in surveys when I ask at the end of each what help they need from me and they say nothing "it's just something I have to do." Then, because they don't get help whether it's on content or time management, or whatever, they get underwater and midterms is about when this hits. Many students can do well, swim along the first few weeks, but then start to struggle. A lot of our students are first generation, and tell me that they feel "stupid" asking things everyone else seems to know. Some have toxic beliefs about their professors, help, how class should be. These I think have been consistent issues my time here.

But this semester I think there's a rise in what used to be a smaller issue. There has always been a portion of students who had a hard time understanding consequences of actions. Surprised at the end of the semester that they failed when they hadn't turned in work or come to class. But this semester students shared more about how they feel and many said they have PTSD from Covid learning. My first year students, many of whom are 18-19, spent the majority of their high school years in a pandemic. They said that their time was chaos. They were moved online, and no one knew what was going on. The assignments were about checking boxes, worksheet type assignments, graded as complete, and a focus on compliance, not learning skills or content. No one asking about what they knew. A lot of time in front of screens, both for school, and to cope/escape everything, watching tv, movies, on phone trying to stay connected with friends they couldn't see. That they had lots of different teachers. Had to move online a lot, even when they went back to in-person. Felt disconnected. 

So now in face to face classes, on campus, they feel like they don't know how to talk to classmates, make friends, take part in discussions. That they get overwhelmed with everything there is to juggle and no one telling them what to do. Not asking for help or advocating for themselves because they don't think there is any help, there hasn't been for years. 

Some students have told me they're commuting from home to campus either for work or issues at home, but not like half an hour or an hour commute, like many of our students do, but hours and hours, meaning they're not on campus in their dorm at least half the week. I think this is a real Covid consequence that I started to notice last year. Students who were online for school, who didn't necessarily have synchronous instruction or work, started working during school hours, and doing school work when they could. For some, they've kept this schedule, or misunderstand that they can keep this schedule with classes that meet during the day versus designing a schedule with days and time off for work.

I know that K-12 teachers have done their best in impossible situations. I think what I am seeing is that individual great teachers cannot overcome cascading institutional failures. And all of this doesn't even take into account the strain of students experiencing death on a large scale, feeling pressure to work, help out with child care and bills. The mentla health strain this has put on all of them.

And here's the heart of the issue- teachers, even good, caring ones, cannot overcome structural and institutional failures. The best we can do is create environments that are as flexible as possible in order to respond to a variety of situations while also being explicit about help, support, suggestions, things to do.

But every semester I will make my syllabuses, then rethink them as I panic that I'm not doing enough. Rewrite whole classes. Doodle things out, trying desperately to solve the unsolvable.

So, for next semester, this is what I'm going to do.

Starting from the end, the last four weeks on narratives, reading, responding, discussing. Since I've decided to focus more on "composition" and only using readings for models, and the readings they choose for their research, this will be a chance to transition a bit to literature. Then, what comes right before that will be a final draft of a research paper on a social issue of their choice. With that being the final product, I design backwards- I want them to focus on Murray's Making Meaning, especially on how to revise for voice and style. If I want them to be able to do that, they need to see that revision is not about "fixing" it to get to minimum requirements, so we'll annotate the papers the week before for the minimum requirements and go over how to do formatting as a last step. That would be week 9.

Going back to the beginning- in the first week I want to ask them what they think the greatest social issues/challenges are. Ask them about ones that seem to be missing. I like using the United Nations 17 Sustainable Goals as a start, like I did this semester, but don't want to limit to that. I then want students to write "I believe..." statements about these issues. Then I want to introduce them to informal research, just looking up basic facts and stats for Covid, poverty, homelessness, climate change.  Doing this as a first week introduces them to the work.

Building on this, week two I want to model, make sure they know how to read, annotate, discuss articles, opinion pieces, and then respond in writing, so we'll do that in class. Then I want them to learn how to ask analytical questions an how to form a thesis, so we'll do that in week four. We'll round out these basic, intro skills in week four by having them write a definition paragraph that sets the parameters of their issue, practices topic sentences, support. This practices skills on smaller level, lots of in class work and feedback. 

Then in week five we shift to mini-lessons/overview at the beginning of class, reading a model and walking through it, then a big chunk of class of them applying. So first we'll talk about formal and informatl sources, we'll look at sample reference pages, look the scholars up, and talk about best sources and how we use different sources. By the end of this week they find their own sources for their social issue. In week six we cover how to interact with sources, use them, not just quote dump them. We will also cover how to organize by topic, not source, and the different effects of using "according to..." or parenthetical or footnotes as ways to engage sources as well as why different fields use different styles.  So in week seven students can take this information and decide what the logical order is for presenting these topics, deciding the order they will write about them so in week eight we can talk about how to structure paragraphs, and they can write them, then once they have their body paragraphs done they can outline their papers in the introduction and talk about future steps, calls to action in their conclusion.

And all that takes us to week nine, where we pick up the end.

I want to spend more time in class informally conferencing as we do these steps, and have them continue to email prodcts (definition paragraphs, sources, body paragraphs, intro/conclusion) for feedback but not a grade, and have them conference about the final.

I want to take the every four week check in surveys and make them more reflections than surveys, since I have to report progress report grades in week 4, midterms grades in week 8, then final grades in 16. I want them to self evaluate their own progress on learning, work, behavior. I want them to set growth goals and celebrate what they've made progress on. This is the furthest ungrading I've gone, and I think I made enough movement towards this this semester that I feel confident.

Now, ideally, I'd want to take the last 2 weeks or so, including finals week and have these be in-person conferences with me, where they bring their work from the semester in, show it to me, and do an oral reflection/presentation of their learning, work, behavior, and we talk about what final grade to post. I like that this is like portfolio work, but doesn't require them to create anything extra, they're just showcasing what they have. I'm not sure about doing it during finals week, as a big part of the issue I've talked about above is the last couple of weeks. So what I may do is design the narrative chunk different. Maybe we read stories, poems, memoirs, for two weeks, then do the conferences the last two weeks.

Clear criteria- both providing list of work we did for each every four week check in, not unlike I used to supply to high school students for interactive notebooks. Providing models of how behavior affect work, learning, but are not necessarily punitive factors. Asking them to think about the skills and content they've learned. Provide feedback on using evidence, artifacts, to support. Make it clear that all of this is important, as ew go through the semester but also, a clear criteria for final grade- you must conference with me, you must present your work over the semester. Enough flexibility hopefully for students who may need to leave early, schedule early, go first, but enough time too for everyone to go, like an extension of our grade conferences.

I have two English 103 on Tuesday, Thursday that are the same prep, so I'll try this with those classes. The MWF 103 I have is themed around feminist horror, so is a four module, one product per module, more separate than building but I do want to do the reflections every four weeks instead of just check in surveys. So I can have a couple of different environments to compare and see.

I also want to be more explicit from the beginning that I am there to help, but I can only help if they communicate, but make sure I explain that is not the same as feeling like you have to share and perform trauma to "earn" being treated with basic human decency. That they don't owe me anything, but there needs to be some communication. 

I also want to let them know that there's a lot I can help with, but there is a tipping point- a certain amount of time out of class, missed instruciton, a certain amount of missing work, that we reach where we just can't get caught up. Be more explicit about 1st generation issues, the stress and anxiety we can feel, how we can feel there's no help, not just sharing resources but talking about them.

I admit I struggle with this, or rather, I tend to do this, but only later in the semester, once I've built a relationship with the students. I think they can see and hear a lot of this from week one, but I don't know if they know me well enough to believe me until later.

I haven't gotten all of the end of semester reflections form this semester yet but the ones I've read so far are encouraging. A lot of the things I do in my classroom works. Students think the "choosing their own grades, grades conferencing" approach is weird at first, but they grow to like it. Say it takes stress and anxiety away. That my teaching style is "weird" but they like it. That they like how I email to check in on them, send them reminders, and know that I care. They all really like the hyperlinked syllabus, how detailed it is, and that it is always up to date. I was surprised to learn that they did not miss Blackboard at all (we didn't use it at all this semester). They said the syllabus had everything, and they knew what their grades were because they determined them, and grades were not averaged but based on growth, so their most recent grade was their grade. This made me happy, but honestly surprised me. They did say that it took some getting used to the first couple of weeks, looking in different places for classes, but that went away quickly.

From my interactions with students, I think they think I'm fair. When I tell students that because they missed weeks and weeks their assignment doesn't do what was asked, and because they missed weeks and weeks, I don't have other work to show me they knew the content, could pass, they tell me that's fair. They don't feel like I've tricked them or treated them poorly. I want to think that this is as good as I can aim for, that I provide the spaces and opportunities for students, but that they know too what their role is. But I don't know.

Now I know the students here at the end of the semester, sending me these reflections, are probably not the ones who I need to tell me how they are, what they need, what worked, what didn't. And I still don't have a solution for that. I already ask in the monthly reflections what's working for them, what their challenges are, what they need. I'll continue to noodle on how I can do this better, different.

I know a lot of this is the end of semester feelings- I always feel super high and super low. I get to see the amazing progress, growth, and projects my students produce. But I also look at the roster and see how many students aren't there. That never responded to my emails, just withdrew, or stopped coming, or whatever. And I feel every single one of those as a failure.

I think part of this is how we approach teaching in the US. We don't train teachers to be part of a collective or to reflect on their mistakes honestly. Once we're in jobs I think so many teachers are so afraid of punishment and retaliation that teachers don't share what is going on in their classes, so we don't see that so many of us are experiencing the same thing, so we don't brainstorm and talk through what's going on. I'm not saying I think we can fix all the issues, like I've said again and again, individuals cannot overcome structural and institutional issues like racism, poverty, food and housing insecurity, no health care, no child care, abyssmal education prep. But I like to believe that if we talked and worked like a collective we could try things, share things, build a network where maybe I don't catch everyone but I catch these, and you catch those, and he catches these others, and so on.

It's All So Hard

For their second assignment my ENGL 102 students have to argue for a single change. Their first assignment was a research report on a topic of their choice, and I told them that these assignments were designed to build on one another, that they use the research from the first to see what the issue is, then use it to inform what change they'd argue for. They get to pick their own topics, as long as it connects to the theme of the class. Two of my 102 classes are themed around "the purpose of education." Students are arguing for no more homework, for more inclusive and comprehensive sex ed, for equity in school funding, for quizzes and not comprehensive exams. 

These last few weeks are focused on students drafting their presentation slides and notes, revising, then presenting. The last couple of weeks we've talked about setting up presentations, what presentations should do, and filling in research gaps and how to use miltimedia. They had a chance at the end of this last week to practice their presentation, sitting, not standing in front of the class, getting positive feedback (claps and snaps) and in general a more informal practice session. 

One student, talking about these topics, in general, made the comment that it all seems insurmountable. Impossible. That it seems sometimes like there's nothing they can do, that they should just give up. Not care. Not engage. It's a stance I've heard a lot the last few years. I answered but I don't know how helpful my answer was, or ever is. I suggested that everyone as an adult had to balance contributing what they could to issues they chose to prioritize- time, money, organizing, to try and personally contribute, feel better, and then vote, be informed, to try and enact larger change. That we can care about many things but we can't do it all. That it harms our mental health to try. I know, because many of them tell me, that they feel things deeply. But I also know that they feel a bit hopeless.

I can relate.

Week 11, this is when in the semester that I start to feel like I'm not doing enough, not helping, where I start to regret and question every pedagogical choice I've made. I don't have classwork, practice, formative assessment grades, although students do a lot of practice, send it to me for feedback. Not all do. I got rid of "graded" practice after last year it seemed to just be one more thing that students fell behind on, a recipe to overwhlem them, set them up to not do well. So this semester, the students only have two "graded" assignments, midterm and final. Both they conference about, argue for the grade they think they earned, reflect on, and I rarely have to push back or disagree. The second assignment builds on the first, although if they hated their topic they could change it. The second assignment is also what determines their final grade, with a reflection where they can argue for higher based on invisible labor or challenges I may not know about. The first was a research report, the second is a presentation. They have chances to email me practice parts, drafts, workshop in class. There's not penalty for late work, although both midterms and final have "hard" deadlines because, as I tell them, I have to submit grades by a certain time.

This is the time in the semester where students are sick, tired, overwhelmed, and my attendance drops and drops. I know from past semesters, past student surveys and conversations, that this is not a failure on my part. Almost none of their other classes have flexibility in them and mine does, so they use my class as designed. Friday I emailed students in a few groups- those who I hadn't seen in a while, those who did not turn in a midterm assignment, those who turned one in but didn't pass. I made sure to emphasize that they could still pass. That there were a lot of reasons why students would be tired, checked out, this point in the semester. I laid out step by step what they could do, what we were doing in class the next couple weeks. I made sure to tell them I was here to help. Not all students answer. Some do. Some will come back to class.

I wish I had better ways to help the students who don't write back. Who disappear and I never know why.

Last week I also went over registration stuff, since registration for Spring 2023 starts tomorrow. We talked about what GE was, what the 100, 200, 300, 400 level classes meant. I told them how I advise my students- to definitely get their 35 required GE credits taken care of, but to save some of their 25 free electives for junior and senior year, to help balance when they're taking all academic, heavy classes in their major. To give them a mental break. To save yoga, or art, or music, or film, as a treat, a break, when they need it. Students are registered for 15 credits, but often in their first semester that is 7 classes. Students tell me they feel overwhelmed. That their day to day schedule is hectic, goes too long, doesn't allow for meals. So I recommend they print or draw out a weekly schedule and think about the times of classes when they register. To not sign up for an 8a if they're not a morning person. To not schedule classes over lunch. To not make days that are 3 or 4 classes back to back.

Students get to ask questions, I make sure they know who their advisors are, check that they've made registration appointments. But I wish we advised first year students differently. I wish we advised them to prioritize their mental and physical health. I think of how much different college would look like if we did.

Sometimes, the issues students face, what they struggle with, seems too hard. Too big. Above my pay grade. I worry about all the little damages we do to students and don't have to. I worry, all the time, but especially at the end of the semester that I'm not doing enough. I doubt what I am doing. 

Does my approach to grades help students focus on process and learning and reflection? Or does the lack of grades posted in a gradebook cause more anxiety and stress?

Is my hyperlinked Google Doc syllabus enough? Accessible enough? Or should I duplicate a face to face class on Blackboard so it's easier, and because it's what students are more comfortable with?

Do students learn how to email and have conversations by emailing their work or should I just have a submit link in Blackboard for ease and familiarity?

If I put everything online in Blackboard is that accessibility or encouraging students to not come?

If I don't have penalties for late work am I helping students or is it a trap? 

Am I teaching students to time manage and plan or should I just put a due date in Blackboard so it reminds them and they have one less thing to do?

I think about the fact that the response rate for my check in surveys every four weeks drops and drops every time, and that the answers I get are only from students still coming, still doing, the students that do well no matter what the system design.

I feel overwhelmed with all the things I don't know, can't impact, can't fix.

Usually I spiral for several weeks, panic, worry. Then I return to my touchstone, the advice I give students, that I cannot fix or control or even move the needle, on everything. So I try to refocus my energy on the things I can affect and they create the grace and space for them to do what is best for them.

But it is all so hard.

And it's made harder by institutions and systems. By high gas prices that affects commuters. By students with families who are juggling so much. By adult students who are struggling to reintegrate. By students who are housing or food insecure. By students with undiagnosed learning disabilities. By students struggling to balance it all. By the stress, anxiety, pressure of it all. By the steep learning curve that living on campus fall semester presents. By people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, and make hard situations so much worse.

I try to tell my students I know all this. And I wish I could fix it all. I try to tell them I see them. That I know. That I am here to help if I can.

But it is all so hard.

And so often feels like never enough.

Writing Workshops

Since my students have been working in writing workshops the last couple of weeks I thought I'd share some how I do it.

The first four weeks of the semester my composition classes spend a lot of time reading and responding the things, through their own annotation, our class discussions, and informal writing assignments. They write thesis statements that include the title, author, genre, and say something about a piece. They summarize a single source and learn to cite it. They synthesize two or more sources and learn to cite those, interacting with the sources. We talk about the outline/format for body paragraphs, all using and revisiting the same writings.

This semester I themed my ENGL 102 class around the purpose of education. So the first week they read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “The Purpose of Education” and watched Henry Giroux: What is education for? Then they read James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers” and Clint Smith’s “James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in A Time of Turmoil.” In week two they read Tuskegee University and the importance of HBCUs and The Debate Between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. These were the pieces we used to write summaries and work on body paragraphs. The following week we read Inside the Rosenwald Schools and talked about how multimedia can be used as a source, part of the requirements for their first assignment. That same week we read Schools for freed peoples, School Desegregation, and The Troubled History of American Education after the Brown Decision and they wrote their synthesis paragraphs. I've moved to these shorter assignments they turn in just for feedback because it teaches the lesson they can then apply and preps them for their larger paper.

The next week, week four, they email me what they want to write their first assignment on. It's a research report, has to generally be connected to/answer "what is the purpose of education?" and has minimal sources- a news article, a webpage, an expert source, a piece of multimedia. I respond to all their emails with feedback, generally about narrowing a topic or asking for clarification. Because we've spent the first three weeks reading and talking about topics that connect to this assignment, many choose topics like desegregation, inequity in the classroom, or specific topics like Booker T. Washington or HBCUs. But others choose to research homework, why we have GE classes, how segregation still occurs, or the issues with online learning. They pick their own topics and I encourage them to pick something they're interested in. The readings help provide support if they have a hard time picking topics, or I talk through with them ideas.

This is also the week they watch Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities (2017) (1:25) as a way of exposing them to documentaries as a source. At the end of that week they start researching their topic. I have them create a Google Doc called "notes" and teach them to hyperlink their sources and take notes under it, this way they have what they need later for citation. When we did the summarize and synthesis paragraphs I taught them how to cite and why each field cites differently, what they value, and what citations tell us. We also talked about choosing best source not first source, and how to think about who they're citing. They get the day in class to research, just time to work in class, ask questions as they need it. This time to work in class is at the heart of how I designed my writing workshops.

Week five we spend time in class first organizing research by topic, not source, so I have them make a copy of their hyperlinked notes in Google Docs, teach them how to use Google Docs' tools ---> citations, to input all the information, so they can cite as they move/organize their information from source to topic. Then we go over how to write body paragraphs, that I like their topic sentences to be specific, tell me what the paragraph is about, then layer quotes, paraphrases, their research. We talk about concluding sentences leading to the next paragraph and how there should be a logic to what topics come in what order. I tell them that I prefer to move from the general to the specific.

This is usually the first place students struggle because they've all chosen their own topics, so there is no list to give them of subtopics to cover, no answer. They have to figure out based on their research what the best answer is. They have to decide what order makes sense. Again, they're doing this work in class, so they bring laptops up to me, roll their chairs over to ask questions, and this is when the workshop model also starts to pay off.

I used to teach the "order" of writing differently. Now I have them do these body paragraphs first. The following day we work on their introductions and conclusions. I teach them to write introductions that act as road maps to their papers, so only possible to write AFTER they've written the body. Since their research reports are all on the purpose of education and their next assignment is to create a presentation that argues for a change in their education topic, I give them only broad suggestions for their conclusions. I tell them they can tell their reader why this matters, what the impact is. That they can start to pivot to what their argument will be, what changes need to be made.

At the end of this week they send me the drafts of their papers with a reflection email. I ask them to answer specific prompts AND then provide a checklist of assignments guidelines and formatting and citations to double check before submitting. This is teh rare weekend day I will log into my work email. Normally I do not check it if I'm not at work during office hours, or these workshop days, I log into the classroom computer so I can answer questions, read drafts, etc. as they come in. 

The syllabus also says this and I go over this in class. I feel it's important to tell them WHY I am asking them to do things in such a specific way:

Please follow these directions precisely. All 5 of my classes have drafts due, and if I have to send emails about not having editing access, or the reflection not included, or the link not in the email, that is a lot of extra work.

• Draft reflection email

• Go over document for assignment #1 and check formatting, citations

• Check work against general writing guidelines

• Make sure your Google Doc is set to “anyone with the link can edit”

• Please do not individually share your document with me (I’ll get 100 emails)

• Please submit only Google Docs for the draft

• If you wrote in Word, just upload it to Google Docs

• Copy and paste the link at the end of your reflection email and hit enter so it hyperlinks

I am reading these to provide feedback Sunday morning so that you have them to revise next week. I rather you take the extra time to have a good, complete draft than rush. However, please be aware that if it comes in after Sunday, it might not have as quick a turn around for feedback.

I explain that because there are so many students, any additional emails I have to send about "I don't have access" or "this is missing the reflection email" add to the work. I do sit down on Sunday, and because I have no lesson planning that week, I instead read every email, every reflection, every draft. I provide both specific and holistic feedback. Out of five classes of 20-25 students the submission rate is kind of all over the place, always is. Some classes almost everyone turns in their draft. Another class, no one does. This is fine, they are aware of the consequences of this.

The following week they read Donald Murray “Making Meaning Clear: The Logic of Revision” and they watch one of the Great British bake Off technical challenges and we talk about it as a way of talking about feedback, what they think of it, why it's useful, what the purpose is. Then they write me ANOTHER reflection email, this time about what they learned from the Murray, what they'll use from it, and a specific plan for them revising their own work based on the feedback they received. In these reflections they can ask any questions they had about the feedback, any clarifications. Then they have time in class to work on those revisions. 

If they don't have their drafts done, they have this revision week to complete their draft. There is no judgement. They have class time set aside. They use it as they need.  The last thing we do during workshops is I have them read different articles about grades, ungrading, issues with grades, and we talk about how grades work in my class. The following week we conference. When they're ready they come up with their paper and present it to me. I ask questions, give feedback, they write that down, then they write me a reflection email responding to feedback, reflecting on whole process and tell me what grade they think the work earns and why. Unless it's wildly off it's the grade I post for midterms. Midterm grades aren't posted until week 8 and conferences are week 7 so if they want to revise for a higher grade in that meantime they can.

Their second assignment is a presentation that argues for a change, based on their research. Their grades are not averaged, their final grade is their assignment #2 grade because I explain, they know more, do better at the end. I have one more assignment, a reflection that covers how they felt about the class and why but also gives them a chance to explain, if they want, any invisible work they did during the semester that should raise their grade from what it is. It will never lower their grade, it will only raise it.

When we talk about grades the conversation is up to them. Many talk about how little flexibility their other classes have. How I always prioritize them over work, which they never hear from anyone. How I tell them to rest, provide recommendations for organizing. They talk too about their stress and anxiety levels, professors who don't post grades weeks at a time. We talk too about feedback.

The best workshop days are when they all work, listening to music, watching Netflix on their phones while they work on their laptops. Students bring laptops up to ask questions about how to fix things, what I think. I do a lot of tech teaching here, show them how to use short cuts, tricks. These are my favorite days. But a lot of these 2-3 weeks is boring. I have nothing to do other than answer some questions. And yet, that is exactly what students say they like best about the class, the chance to do this, work, focus, ask questions. That I show them what I think is important.

I've been teaching twenty-two years, and it's still hard sometimes for me during these weeks. Because they are right before midterms it's normally when students first start to get sick, feel stressed, skip some classes to work on others. And it's hard not to take it personally. Why don't they want to come to MY class? I work so hard to make things interesting, why don't they appreciate ME? But that is all ego. It's got nothing to do with what is best for them, what helps them, it's about me acting like a child, taking things personally. Overall my students DO like my classes. They like the discussions. They like the readings. But in a system with no flexibility, no care, students have to make decisions the best they can. If no one seems to care about them and one person clearly does, then they KNOW that one will understand. 

Others have written about how it is overwhelmingly women who carry this burden. Often non-tenured, precarious faculty. And none of that is fair.  I will say that all this is actually less work than I used to do years ago. Students do better. The work balances that the students who first turn things in is fine, manageable, and then others trickle in. Some do no drafts, take the C and are done. And that's fine too. The system is broken. Beyond repair broken. So I disrupt it as much as I can. It helps my students. So I'll take the boredom. I'll prep for the next week's lessons. I'll sit and wait  for their emails to hit my inbox. 

I will say, that even in classes that I think are not going great, ones I feel like we've never clicked, the whole mood and atmosphere changes after these workshop weeks. Students SEE and HEAR what matters, that I mean what I say, that I care about their learning, and that means a shift happens. They know I don't take absences personally. That late work is not a personal failing. That I want them to learn and do their best but tell them too that sometimes you just do what you can, what you have to in order to get by.

We repeat the whole process at the end of class with the second assignment.

Even in my literature classes, I follow a similar formula. We might now spend as much time on the walking them through the basics of writing, but I always build in workshop days where they can work and ask questions as they need to. I always have them reflect. I always have them use Murray for revision. I always have them send me drafts and I always do grade conferences this way. All my students benefit from them, from the whole process.

In past years students have not always had laptops, some type on their phones, so I have an added things in my syllabus about how they can get laptops from admin and in our building there are a couple of computer labs I tell them they can go use. Because a lot of my lessons are on slides, on Google Docs, hyperlinked on the syllabus, they can access it wherever they are. Some choose to stay home, save the gas, and they work from home. The workshop is designed to do that too.

CFP: Edited Collection, Love, Loss, and Trauma: The Horror of Mike Flanagan

 

Call for Papers: 

Love, Loss, and Trauma: The Horror of Mike Flanagan

Editor: Karrȧ Shimabukuro 

Mike Flanagan’s works, both extended series and movies, have provided fresh ideas in a genre that seems more concerned lately with rebooting, remaking, and rewriting, ideas and stories and characters that are familiar to audiences and solid bets for the box office. Flanagan’s works present new stories, even if connections can be made to classic horror, like the connections many made between Midnight Mass and Stephen King’s works. Somehow his series and movies manage to balance the homage with new storytelling. Many of Flanagan’s series like The Haunting of HIll House (2019), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), and The Fall of the House of Usher (pending) are very clear about their Gothic roots while also reminding audiences that what lies so often beneath the surface of horror is loss, grief, trauma, and love, ideas that the Gothic always understood. 

For this collection I am looking for chapters that examine all of Flanagan’s works from Ghosts of Hamilton Street (2003), Oculus (2013), Gerald’s Game (2017), The Haunting of HIll House (2019), Doctor Sleep (2019), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Midnight Mass (2021), to The Fall of the House of Usher (pending). Chapters that consider the Gothic in his works, or trace actors across series and movies, or how he uses classic horror tropes and expectations as red herrings, are all of interest. 

Topics for contributions can address, but are not limited to:

• Analysis of individual movies and series

• Examination of how the actors Flanagan uses connect the universes of his work

• How Flanagan’s works deal with love, trauma, and loss

• The Gothic foundation of his works

• The role of women

• The role of addiction and recovery

• The lack of diversity in his works, especially for the missed chance these representations had to address head on how race has always haunted the Gothic.

I will ensure that this edited collection does not just have solid representation but actively works to provide a space for scholars who have historically been marginalized.  Therefore I ask when you email your proposal of roughly 350 words that you include a detailed bio so I can ensure the collection has women, queer, and scholars of color as the majority.Submission date: 1 December 2022 to  Karrá Shimabukuro khkshimabukuro@gmail.com 

Anticipate first drafts (6,000-8,000 words) by 1 October 2023. 

I welcome questions and clarifications at any stage.

What Does Fall 2022 Look Like? So much worse than anyone is prepared for

I spend a lot of time reflecting all semester on what is working, what isn't. At the end of the semester my students write reflection letters that TELL me what worked and didn't for them.

Teaching college is tricky in a lot of ways. Students are adults, we should not infantilize them. But we also need to consider that a lot of students are young, first generation, maybe need more help, more support. So we have to thread that needle. I always pay attention to what my students say at the end of each semester, as well as in their surveys I give every few weeks. But I also recognize that they are not teachers, they don't know content or pedagogy, so that too is a needle to thread. I am the content expert, I am the expert in pedagogy. That doesn't mean my students don't have knowledge that should be valued, or that they have nothing to teach me.

Covid has made all of this harder because there's both too much and not enough data about how it's affecting our students, us, our classrooms. My students' end of semester letters revealed that a lot of the things I thought I failed at did not fail with them. It's hard to know what to do, what to respond to. I have realized in my end of semester reflections that I have spent the majority of the last two years reacting to everything, trying every possible accommodation, hoping something sticks to the wall, and it's exhausting, and I'm not convinced that it was successful. Reading their reflections the last couple of years it wasn't any of the pivots that made a difference with my students it was the foundation of a pedagogy of care. It was my lack of attendance policies, lack of deadlines, that I reached out to check on them, posted announcements and said in class how hard I knew everything was, it was the note about letting me know if they needed accommodations for Ramadan.

I wrote a few weeks ago about needing everything to be a bit quieter, and paring down in the classroom is something I've built my summer and fall classes around.

So here are a few of the things I've done, or plan to do:

• I redesigned my Google Site in this vein. Because my course policies have gone back to my syllabuses, I've taken that off here, again, with idea of my syllabus being the only thing students need, lessening the amount of data. I've updated my home page with the syllabuses for summer and fall. I've separated helpful links and writing resources.
• I redesigned my syllabus template.  I had lots of reasons for this.
• First, I wanted my syllabus to be the one document they need.
• Second, I wanted to redo the language, course policies, resources, so that they were not jargon and were presented in a way that was accessible to students.
• I explain each section.
• I reframed a lot of policies into "Students who do well do this..."
• It helps with a "how to get help" section.
• I redesigned the top so all the vital information students needed was there.
• I've redesigned my classes to have two main assignments.
• One before midterms, one before final.
• There are lots of in class, skills based, practice, build up to assignments, but they are not graded.
• I did this because I wanted to think about what the bare minimum I needed students to do. AND so I and they could focus on doing this well. 
• I plan on doing a lot of revisiting. Write something, come back to it, revise, come back, remake it into something else
• I redid HOW we do assignments.
• They will present them to me, talk about process, so similar to grade conferencing. Except it's not. Because I'm not going to grade them. They will take notes on the feedback they receive. Then they will write a reflection memo, and that is what gets the grade.
• A-C, A= rockstar, B= evidence of revision, C= met minimum requirements. Everything else is a Resubmit= doesn't show learning yet.
• They can always revise, resubmit if they want.
• But the focus is on the process, the learning, the revision. 
• I've implemented this in my summer classes and it's proving to be a bit of a challenge cognitive dissonance wise
• I leaned into the things students liked, watching documentaries, the assignment guidelines, the detail.
• I am saving up and bit by bit, am buying books to start independent reading in the fall. I'm going to do it like I did in high school, once a week, dedicated time (20-30 minutes) to read in class. Books provided. They read for pleasure. Pick what they want. They will use their books in class, looking at style, how paragraphs are constructed, details, etc.
• I was inspired by this tweet by Dr. Kate Ozment and started doing this for my classes. So far it's a much more manageable way to save readings, links, resources as I encounter them. Then I'll create a bibliography right before the class(es) start and make it available to the students.
• I have more and more concerns about 

I continue to be concerned about what the fall semester looks like.

Today North Carolina has high community spread and 31.2% test positivity rate, which has been rising steadily since 20 March which had a 3.9% test positivity rate.  And that's with the "nice weather" that we were all told would mean fewer infections and community transmission.

People are rapid testing at home, but no one is tracking these results.

Almost no one I see out is masked.

In-person events are back, with the news and social media showng crowds at concerts, people vacationing at theme parks, flying, traveling.

People who are not using mitigation measures are reporting "Covid finally got me." Well yeah. You're not masking, going on vacation, eating indoors, actively engaging in crowds--you've essentially stopped doing everything that's kept you safe for 2 1/2 years OF COURSE you got Covid.

I have actually been pretty shocked at the people I see doing all these things. People I would have thought were smart.

Have the number of hospitalized and dying dropped? Yes. 

But Long Covid is still affecting roughly 40% of the people who are positive. It's a mass disabling event with horrific, terrifying, side effects.

Most states have moved the goalposts on data, encouraged by the CDC.

We were sold a bill of goods that said "we" (and man is that word doing a lot heavy lifting) would "ramp up" mitigation measures if needed, but no on-ramps were identified. 

You have to really look at the data to understand what is going on, the CDC reports 83% as a vaccinated number. But that's just people with one vaccination. Dig at the data and turns out only 46.9% are fully vaccinated AND boosted.

Yet the news is also full of reports that the last mass testing sites are closing. 

We KNOW what mitigates Covid- masking, social distancing, improvements to air filtration, limiting contact. Yes, vaccination is part of that, but vaccination means FULLY vaccinated, which means boosters and I know a surprising number of people who only ever got one dose of a two dose vaccine and never got a booster. 

2 1/2 years in we're doing none of what we know will help. 

• All schools and universities should have LAST summer required full vaccination for all students, all faculty, all staff
• Schools should have lowered class caps permanently to ensure social distancing
• Schools and workplaces should all have upgraded their air filtration systems
• Communities should have identified clear on-ramps for mitigation measures like masks inside, and then ENACTED THEM. And no, putting up a sign that says "The CDC recommends that you mask indoors with high community transmission" does not cover it. 
• Make it like fire danger signs- we get used to different levels: low, moderate, high, very high, extreme

I am horrified that no one seems to be paying attention, caring, doing anything.

The federal govenment seems to just be shrugging like Elmo. What can be done. No money. So sad.

Our local governments are doubling down on just ignoring it all.

It's mass gaslighting. 

Daycares are still having to close for weeks at a time for infections, upsetting child care, parents' work schedules.

Schools ended the year NEVER having solved bus driver shortages, teachers being out. Schools were STILL putting hundreds of kids in a gym with just one or two adults because there were no faculty/staff there. 

Rather than create a permanent online option, like a waiting room, where teachers (immuno-compromised, or ones with unvaccinateable children at home would be a good choice here) taught only online, NOT in an infected building, could adapt, kids in and out...as needed.

Schools should have dumped standardized testing, one because it serves no purpose, no really, and two, WE'RE STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC.

Schools should have trimmed back, pared down, ALL the expectations while we're still in the middle of a global pandemic.

Schools should have leaned into being community hubs, for testing, vaccination, food pantry sites. 
Schools certainly should NOT have cancelled universal free lunch (breakfast) for everyone in a time where all the social supports are gone, everyone seems to think if they just don't believe in Covid we'll be fine.

Students are still missing school. They're still losing people.

Yet there are no solutions for when schools have to deal with mass outbreaks. They're not even testing to return, or doing anything to limit the mass outbreaks.

Schools have no rewarded anyone in their buildings for the work above and beyond they've done. Instead they're blamed for every apparent societal ill. 

Schools have no improved the physical conditions for anyone.

There have been no mass changes to curriculum, expectations.

There are no additional counselors, psychologists, social workers.

Schools are not safe and outsiders seem hell-bent on making them scarier, less safe, more like locked down prisons than anything else.

As a society we are completely and totally unprepared for the fallout of the collapse of seemingly every aspect of our society.

The United States treats their current disabled population horrificly. The limits on income, savings, let along the issues with access to help, support, treatment, doctors, needed mobility aids.

Our infrastructure- buildings, sidewalks, EVERYTHING, is not built for accessibility.

So what happens when almost 50% of our population requires all of this to function?

The grief, the trauma, the loss, which no one has had time to deal with, everyone is still so focused on getting through the next day.

And that's without the mass shootings every day.

Cities flooding now in "minor" storms.

More hurricanes, more tornadoes, more storms, all of which are more deadly, more frequent.

Wildfires that are bigger, more dangerous, out of season.

Institutional racism. Institutional misogyny.

So I worry what fall semester looks like for us, for our students, for our communities.

I worry that the burden of taking up the slack will again fall to mostly women, women of color, queer professors, and we will once again be doing it with no support.

I worry about how we expect our students to function, to learn, to do anything, when things keep getting worse and it's like we're all in the middle of a version of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

So I'm planning for a pared down approach. I've doubled-down on building a pedagogy of care into my classroom. 

But I'm also trying to make sure I'm taking care of myself, which I've not been doing very well honestly. Because if I don't make it to fall then I can't help my students.

So I'm continuing to not go out. I still only grocery shop once a week. I am masked every time I go out. I do not attend in person events. I am grateful my summer classes are online this summer. But I plan on continuing all this in the fall. I will mask in class. I will use my CO2 monitor. 

But I'm also placing limits on things, taking time away and off when I can. Trying to build in some quiet, some rest. Take the time when I can.

I continue to struggle with living in a world that does not care that people die, get sick, are permanently disabled. That, more than anything else, is the thing that weighs most on me. People I would have said are smart, or caring, are simply not as the months and years roll on. And that loss of humanity, of empathy, of basic human awareness, I fear is the fallout that will hurt us most in the end.

The Danger of Stranger Things' Nostalgia

Contains spoilers for Volume I of Stranger Things 4.

One of the things that the first three seasons of Stranger Things did well was to capture the feelings of being a kid in the United States of America during the 1980s. Yes, they got the music and references right (mostly) but all of these are in service to the feelings, meant to evoke both feelings of nostalgia for people old enough to have originally experienced those feelings and to package those feelings and export them to millions of people who did not experience them first hand.

It a conscious construction by the Duffer Brothers with a very specific aim.

Despite the known forming the fabric of Hawkins and the stories centered there, it was still a series that managed to do something different, interesting, with its storytelling. Series 1-3 did such a good job at this particular brand of storytelling that when It Parts I and II (2017, 2019) came out, it felt like a copy of a copy that wasn't particularly done well. It seemed less than, less rich, less detailed, less invested. Part of this I think is due to the distance of adaptation. The novel came out in 1986, the mini0series in 1990, so they both were very much a reflection of their moment. Yet in the almost thirty years between novel/original adaptation and these remakes, it's a fine line to walk between capturing what it felt like to grow up like this, what made up our daily lives, and have it feel authentic and having to both acknowledge and be critical of all that made up that time.

The further Stranger Things gets into their seasons, the more the illusion of nostalgia frays at the edges, revealing what many knew from the start.

Like Ready Player One, the nostalgia of Stranger Things is only representative of a very small sliver of the population- predominantly white, middle class, men. They cover a range, the Wheelers are clearly the most well off of the bunch, with the Byers clearly at the lower end. The Hendersons are closer to the Wheelers than the Byers, as are the Sinclairs. Mike, Dustin, and Lucas are clearly products of these environments. Mrs. Karen Wheeler is a stay at home mom, as apparently is Sue Sinclair. Claudia Henderson is the outlier here, no husband (and no explanation or story for his absence), does not appear to work, yet their home, while more modest than the Wheelers and Sinclairs, certainly does not appear to be wanting. The socio-economic state of these families is important because it is what allows the boys to have leisure time, to spend ten hours a day playing a campaign in the basement, to have the bikes they travel across town on in their adventures.

The nostalgia of the show is one that centers predominantly white, cis, men. Lucas is often sidelined, as is Max, with both excused in the show as part of the "Party" not communicating. Yet the audience knows more about the Wheelers and the Byers and even Claudia Henderson than the Sinclairs. The audience gets more background information, more scenes set in her house, than Lucas' despite her not being added until season three. Will's queerness can be read as the reason for his absence in most of season one, and the issues with not believing, not centering, his story in season two. Possibly the most mediocre white dude on the planet, Bob in season two, is built up as a superhero, a geek who got the girl and works at Radio Shack and apparently knows how to hack, because all mediocre white men can, must be genetic. White men in Stranger Things are always going ot be fine. Hopper is drunk all the time, late, not doing his job, yet he floats through seasons one, two, and three, with no consequence. In fact he's rewarded with a daughter to replace the one he lost, and a potential love interest in Joyce. Jonathan spends most of season four stoned but is somehow able to rally to organize escape from trained government killers and figure out the government secrets they needed.

The women in the show are barely more than stereotypical, barely described sketches. 

Karen Wheeler is unhappy in her marriage and contemplates having an affair with the pool boy. Claudia Henderson spends her time in a lounger stroking her cat, who she is obsessed with. We get nothing from Sue Sinclair other than her husband tells her she's always right in the most condescending manner possible.

Nancy Wheeler is defined in the first season by how much she likes Steve Harrington, the "King" with the hair. The majority of her conversations with Barb center on getting Steve to like her. She sleeps with him with apparently no lead up or explanation, apparently one wasn't needed, and later feels intense guilt that she wasn'tlistening to Barb, didn't help, didn't realize she was gone. #JusticeForBarb became a joke with fans on the show, but it's just another example of killing a female character for a plot point. Nancy checks most of the boxes of a "Final Girl" and like them she is used to fight the bogeyman, proving herself to be an excellent shot, good in a crisis, but she's never allowed to grow past, heal, deal with, the trauma that comes to define her. She is not allowed to have a life- her relationship with Steve falls apart, she loses her internship, she chooses Jonathan not so much because they're a good fit but because they have "shared trauma." The latest season has her running the school newspaper and planning to attend Emerson after graduation, but she's once again abandoned the first to serve the purpose of what the men require. I don't have high hopes for Emerson working out either.

Max is a mini-"Final Girl" defined only by her trauma, making her a target of Vecna who has to be saved by the men, and whose trauma is not addressed, because it's only useful to a certain point in the plot- to bring Lucas back to the Party. She lives in a trailer park because the plot required a witness to the first Vecna murder. Max is a doll taken off the shelf when she can be useful to the boys' story and when that is done to be their date to the dance. Then...nothing. No growth, no story of their own, just stasis until the boys' narrative requires her. In season three she is needed because Eleven has to be paired off with someone, so she can later return to Mike.

Joyce Byers is presented as a mess from the beginning. The inference is clearly that a single, divorced mother, is clearly incapable of functioning. She can't find her keys, she always looks a bit sloppy, she clearly depends on her eldest son to function, as she is presented as incapable. The only times the audience sees her functioning is briefly when her ex-husband Lonnie Byers shows up and then later with boring-ass Bob (is being boring a superpower?). Some will argue Joyce does have growth- she is able to oversee Will's recovery, move the family out of Hawkins, fly to Alaska to negotiate a hostage exchange, and survive the Russian winter forest. But these are plot points she's accomplished, they are not growth. Steve grows by learning to care. Lucas grows by relearning the value of his friends. Mike learns to value platonic as well as romantic love. Dustin grows in confidence, learning to trust himself, guide others. Will's queerness places him in a bit of stasis, he clearly grows up, but he still seems unable to express himself, fight for himself. Joyce does not grow as a character. Nancy does not grow as a character, in fact the latest season is regressing her to season one. 

Dustin's girlfriend Suzie is literally just a stereotype- the geeky girl who can hack. And she apparently lives in a Mormon house where racist cosplay is the usual. She bookends season three, but is absent from the narrative, having inspired confidence in Dustin she serves no other tangible purpose. In season four her only purpose is to help the "Party" find Eleven, so she can save the world, and they can all return to normal.

Robin Buckley should prompt every audience member to ask, have the creators ever actually met a woman? Talked to her? She's "quirky" and "weird" and "sassy," speaks four languages (if you count pig Latin), and can translate Russian government codes. She's gay, but only talks about it, so like Will's invisible queerness, poses no threat to the group, the majority. The above facts, plus she's in band, is all we know about her. We don't need to know anything else about her, she's amusing and funny, and makes a good sidekick, and the audience doesn't need to know anything else. Which reemphasizes the thread that runs all through the show, like so much other media, that the audience does not need fully fleshed out women characters. Their portrayals don't need depth, they don't need journeys, or lives, because that is not what the story is about.

The argument made by the presentation of these women is that there are very narrow parameters for being defined as a woman, that the majority of these parametrs involved serving a specific purpose, to support the narratives of the men. You can be an unhappy housewife, a lonely, crazy cat lady, or a basket case single, divorced mom. If you're under thirty these are the paths you're on, and even before you get there your current purpose is only to serve the narratives of the boys. 

The "Final Girl" trope is present in seasons one through three. 

Eleven is no different in many ways from the rest of the women. She has no meaning on her own. She is a deconstructed "Final Girl" defined by trauma, serving the specific purpose of defeating the bogeyman, but ultimately has her power taken from her, by Hopper, by the Mind Flayer, then Dr. Brenner (again). She is shown as too dangerous to live in the real world by the end of season one, a focused weapon in season two, does not know who she is if she's not Mike's girlfriend in season three, and broken, unable to live and succeed in the real world (again) in season four. She has the trauma of losing her mother, being experiemented on, pitted against other powered children, ostracized from society first to keep her "safe" then because she does not know how to operate like a "normal" girl. She is only useful because of her powers, the very things that she thinks make her a monster. The boys think she's a superhero, until/unless she points the powers at them, like when she throws Lucas across the abandoned vehicle lot in season one. She's only accepted once she uses her powers to beat up the bullies and save the boys. 

Eleven serves the plots of the men. She is a daughter and lab rat for Dr. Brenner, a replacement daughter for Hopper, a love interest for Mike. When she is first introduced she is a presented as a genderless lab rat, her shaved head and hospital gown, her purpose, as an experiment, her defining characteristic. This is very much evocative of the 1980s which featured young kids with powers that were experimented on, used or groomed as weapons. Anna to the Infinite Power (1983), Firestarter (1984), D.A.R.Y.L. (1985) are all variations of this plot. Season four takes away all the agency Eleven gained (which frankly was not much) but it's okay because it's "necessary" for the fate of the world. It's okay if young women are tortured, controlled by men, imprisoned, as long as it serves a greater good.

While season two hinted at the larger project of Hawkings National Laboratory with the back story of Terry Ives, Eleven/Jane's mother, and Kali/#4, season four shows the full scope of the project. Through flashbacks, used as part of Eleven's superpower reconditioning, the audience learns that Dr. Brenner's project consists of many children, ranging in ages from what look like 4 or 5 year olds up to older teens. The larger group makes sense given how large the Hawkins National Laboratory campus is, it never made sense that just a couple of kids were the focus.

Using children as experiments, from Anna to D.A.R.Y.L. to Max from Dark Angel (2000-2002) and the numerous children who are trained to be killers in the Hitman video game series, as well as the 2007 movie and the 2015 follow up, continues to be a popular trope. But it's disturbing. It's horrific to think that it's okay to torture children, raise them ostracized, traumatize them, as long as it serves a greater good, as long as their serving a larger purpose.

Stranger Things 4 premiered 27 May 2022, days after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. They posted the following card before the first episode of the first season despite the graphic flashbacks throughout the episodes and an incredibly graphic, extended set of scenes in episode seven. And this card is vague. It does not tell you that the "opening scene" which some might find "distressing" involves showing the bodies of these children, scattered throughout Hawkins Lab, dead, lying in large pools of blood.

The warning card is so brief, I missed it. The lack of details about what might be distressing is an odd omission. The "deeply saddened" and "hearts go out" rings hollow at this point, because how many times have we heard those words before and it never means anything.

The episode is called, "Chapter 7: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab."

And the massacre is graphic, although they are not the victims of gun violence, and while bloody, the bodily damage is less than what an AR-15 does to the body of a child. In Stranger Things, 001/"The Friendly Orderly" sacrifices all of the children, the lab rats, the experiments, to his own power, to get his revenge. He does it because he thinks he was owed something, mistreated, that his gifts, his specialness was not recognized. Uvalde or not it's hard not to see the profile of the majority of school shooters in this presentation. It's not hard to see that the children of our public schools, our universities, the families and people of Black communities, Asian communities, continue to be the price that a very small minority is willing to pay in the racist, capitalistic experiment that is the gun-loving at all costs society of the United States.

"The Friendly Orderly" is a white, blond haired, blue-eyed man. His rant, his explanation, his justification, to Eleven of why he is right, justified, righteous, is disturbing but not new. Not surprising. It's familiar. We've heard it before. Women hear it a lot.

The creators may be "deeply saddened" but they still chose to center their story around this man, this story. Yes, he's the bad guy. But they also spend a lot of time telling his story, and while the audience is meant to be experiencing it from Eleven's perspective, through the Project Nina flashbacks enhanced by the lab security video, the focus is not on her experience or memories of this, but on his justification. "The Friendly Orderly," the mythical "001" that Dr. Brenner/Papa said did not exist, is motivated by rage, he tells Eleven to think of something that made her sad, made her angry, and use that to fuel her power, as the audience later learns is what fuels his. 

There is absolutely no need to tell this background. The villain can just be identified as the bad guy. The Demogorgon didn't have an origin story. There wasn't a need. The Mind Flayer didn't need one either or the Spider Monster. So Vecna as a man, as someone whose story the audience needs to know is a conscious choice.

The children at Hawkins Lab are sacrificed, they are murdered, because a young white man didn't felt he got what he was owed. It's a misogynistic ideology that is embedded into our reality.

Given the portrayal of the blond haired, blue-eyed 001 the already inappropriate forearm tattoos of numbers takes on a different context. There is absolutely no reason to have made this choice unless you wanted to. That was true in season one, and two, and three. Season four just throws it in the audience's face. It's not possible for creators to make the argument that they were not aware of the significance of these numbers tattooed on people's arms. The darkest interpretation is that in 2022 white, male creators don't think they'll face a single consequence for making light of, disrespecting the events of the Holocaust and centering a Nazi adjacent narrative.

Other representations of children as experiments/weapons have used numbering as a way to reinforce their purpose, their lack of humanity. Max from Dark Angel  had a bar code on the back of her neck as did the children trained to be "hitmen." The bar codes serve the same purpose, the convey that the children are numbers, cogs, not people. It strips them of their humanity and defines them only by their purpose, as part of an experiment. And it does it without being anti-Semitic.

So choosing to tattoo numbers on the children's arm is an anti-Semitic choice. The creators apparently thought this detail was vital to telling the story they wanted to. The creators also chose a Lithuanian prison, one used by Nazis, to stand in for the Russian prison where Hopper is held. There is absolutely no reason for them to choose this. There is nothing about the setting that could not have been built as a set or that literally any other prison could not have stood in for. They made a Lithuanian Prison stand in for a Russian one, why couldn't an American one have worked? Or a set? 

People associated with the production seemed completely oblivious to the damage, the implications, the effects, of their choices. Shawn Levy, both a director and producer of the series "remarked, “From the start, Stranger Things has been inspiring to all of us lucky enough to work on it. My adventure here in Lithuania in bringing the reveal of the ‘American’ to life has been a huge challenge but an even bigger inspiration, and we are so thankful to the city of Vilnius and the beautiful country of Lithuania for their hospitality."

Lukiškes Prison is described in the above Bustle article as though it was on par with Albuequerque as a filming location. And it currently gives guided tours and has a bar which is also a dance club, "Under the name Lukiskes Prison 2.0, the barbed-wire prison walls now offer a space for creators, reviving the former prison with a new free spirit" a horrifying and awful presentation of such a place. As if all of this is not bad enough, there is a Stranger Things themed room, in the jail, where you can stay.

"The Lukiškes Prison was constructed in the early 20th century and housed both criminals and political prisoners alike. Following the Nazi occupation of Lithuania in 1941, the GEstapo and Lithuanian Saugumas used the prison as a holding cell for Jewish people picked up from the Vilna Ghetto. Most of htese prisoners were eventually executed in the Ponary massacre."

I'm thinking of all the people that had to approve of the tattooed numbers, filming in a Nazi prison, making that prison a themed place to stay, of all the people who signed off on all this, thought it was a good idea, saw absolutely no problem with this.

Despite replicating sexist, misogynistic tropes, privileging white, cis men's nostalgia to the exclusion of all else, the idea of the Upside Down, the monsters, the production design, was different when it premiered. There is an alternative universe where queer, women, creators of color, are given the chance to revisit this time period and tell stories of growing up and fighting monsters in a way that was different and cool and creative.

The control of the creators, the familiar framing of male creators as "auteurs" meant that was never going to happen. But still, the new and interesting parts were there, even if they were buried in the same tropes, rehashing, awfulness. But even this small creative contribution is undone in Volume I of Stranger Things 4. The opening episodes are boring. They're not new. They're not interesting. There is a point at which the dial of homage and nostalgia is just repetition and copying. 

I admit that I always disagreed with categorizing Stranger Things as horror. Fantasy, yes, science fiction, sometimes, but while there are horror elements, I always read it more Gothic than horror. But Volume I, it's like they ran out of ideas and ran down a checklist of what horror should be: serial killer Victor Creel in an asylum? Check. Haunted house? Check. Is it always fun to see Robert Englund even if he looks like a combination of Oedipus and your grandfather? Of course. Is he cheaply used? Absolutely. Was that visit to see Creel in the asylum not even a subtle rip off of Silence of the Lambs? Also yes. 

Taken by itself the plot of Stranger Things 4 is just uninspired and not entertaining. No harm done as so many like to say to excuse awful, unnnecessary representation.

But if you accept that the foundation of the show is misogyny and sexism and exclusion, if you add to that the anti-Semitism, the acceptance and normalization of children as sacrifice, then add to that the "wink wink, nod nod" idea that bad guys aren't always bad guys, not if they were treated badly, or were misunderstood, or were funny or charming serial killers like Freddy Kruger and Hannibal Lecter, then the show as a whole is not about nostalgia, or innocence, and the consequences of the story, the choices, the narrative's focus DOES matter. 

Put all the pieces together and it is very clear what kind of story Stranger Things wants to tell. It's a misogyntistic story. An anti-Semitic story. It's a narrative that hedges and hides Will's queerness. Silences Barb's feminist reminders to Nancy that this isn't who she is. It's a story that is "deeply saddened" by dead children, but they're serving the greater story, the art, and that's very important. In fact, if something is in the service of the art of white men, that pretty much overrides everything else.

And as awful as all of this is, none of this is surprising because the nostalgia of white men gets to do whatever it wants.

Is Stranger Things also a story about friendship, and the families you make, and surviving, and celebrating the underdog, the nerd? Yes. But in 2022 I do not know if that is enough to make up for all of the above. I think this is the danger of the nostalgia of Stranger Things, we want to recapture the feelings of our youth, we want to believe there were simpler, better times, despite the proliferation of Reagan lawn signs that literally point the way to how we got here. We, and by we I mean white people, I mean Generation X, would like to believe that the apocalypses of our youth can be defeated- whether that's the Terminator, or Joshua, or Russians. In a world gone mad, it's be nice to think that a dedicated group can save the world. For some people a comforting narrative that ignores the truth to construct a fantasy is exactly what they want. I think the cost is too much. I think it has always been too much. I think the price some people have to pay over and over again has never been a good trade off for entertainment.

But it is because white men insisted that their story mattered, to the often violent exclusion of all others, it is because they are the ones with all the power, that the world is currently hostile to anyone not them. Where their vote does not count. Where they do not have control over their bodies. Where they are not safe at church, the grocery store, getting their nails done, going to school, saying no to a man. 

That is the danger of Stranger Things' nostalgia, that there is no ill effect to always centering white men's stories, that their stories always deserve to be listened to. That the price of enjoying our Ghostbuster references, and Kate Bush, and arcade games, and summer afternoons riding out bikes, is that we have to agree to ignore the violence, the trauma, the marginalization, the erasure of all the OTHER stories in order to enjoy that small bit. The nostalgia of the series requires the audience to accept a single, narrow truth and ignore or be ignorant of, the wider narrative which cannot exist in the same world as the "Party."

Nostalgia always holds the potential of danger, to glorify a moment, to erase others, in service of a specific narrative. If that narrative is a rose-colored one about summers of your youth, maybe that's okay. If it's a narrative that props up, encourages, gives space to misogyny, violence, trauma, and anti-Semitism, that's not a nostalgia we need. That nostalgia is dangerous, it damages, it does harm.

And ultimately, as with so much media marked "problematic" instead of misogynistic, racist, wrong, it comes down to is whether or not your entertainment worth that price. It's a personal choice. It will have no effect. Studios will not stop giving money to white men creators who tell these stories. Audiences will not stop paying money to be entertained at the expense of women. Fans of a particular demographic will continue to watch, to love, to attack all that dare to criticize, analyze. And the cycle goes on and on.