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How to Serve Our Students: Designing Syllabi

I love sharing teaching stuff.
I love sharing lessons, organization tips, talk about ways to deal with things, talk through designing assignments.
I am a continually reflecting teacher, and I think this is the best kind. I think teachers should always be learning and trying new things and finding the best ways to serve our students.

I think good professional development is essential to this. So, when our center for teaching and learning asked if anyone was willing to offer PD I jumped at the chance.

So this semester I'm holding a series of workshops under the title "How to Serve Our Students."
My thought was to cover the things I thought professors could do to help their students, so the first one is about designing your syllabus, the second about making your courses accessible, and the last about how we can support students.

For the last one I wanted professors to hear from students. So I designed it to be a round table where I'll briefly outline how I designed my courses since I've been here to be anti-racist and the students in those classes can speak right to the professors about it.

My first presentation is Monday, and I thought I'd share my presentation here.
I am not reinventing the wheel here, I would guess that most of the information you've seen and used before. When I do PD for teachers I am rarely offering new information. What I am doing is offering short cuts. A good chunk of useful information in one place, with links for future reference.
I've designed these as workshops, so the opening is me talking them through some big ideas, and then the rest of the time is guiding them through doing the work.

I've never done PD here so I don't know how it will go, but I will share my materials on here in case they're of use to others, and see if I can't plan something like video or something for the case study.

As always, share and cannibalize anything you find useful!

Spring 2020 Syllabi for Classes: Updated

For spring semester I had a few things I wanted to accomplish or revise in my class syllabi:

• Move from multiple assignments that I grade conference to 2 main foci for upper level courses
• Introduce writer's notebook
• Introduce unessay earlier
• Make these two the center of courses with grade conferences at midterms, and reflective letters at the end of the semester for finals
• Students will now present their unessays during final exam time. There was confusion over this last semester
• They'll choose 10 pages from writer's notebook that present best work and write reflections
• They'll write a letter to me about course
• For the composition classes, stop grading the low-stakes assignments, and go all in on major writing assignments
• I'll instead do the LSAs and just do in class check-ins
• Cut class policies and guidelines from syllabus entirely, revise how I present to students
• Put all holidays on schedule
• Redesign schedule to focus on essential questions
• Change how I use Blackboard. Last semester since I only teach face to face classes, I really did not use Bb much. I uploaded syllabus, and built in modules, but I did not end up using them. I did use announcements, uploading one every Sunday for the week ahead. So, this semester I'm going to lock an announcement with the links to our syllabus and class notes (since these were the things students needed most last semester) but I'm going to hide the rest. We're given set modules, which helps the students navigate across courses but I also found it was often overwhelming, especially to first year students, and a lot of students thought because there was a Bb shell (all classes have them) the class was online. So I'm going to simplify things.
• No longer upload work. Students grade conference, so there's no need to submit. Some students would submit, but never grade conference, most never submitted, and it was a point of confusion. So I'm just not having them submit work because it's practical.
• DO continue to use to post grades so students always have access. I DO like that students can always know/see what their grade is.

My Spring 2020 Classes are:

• Composition II
• Capstone Course
• Gender and Lit
• History of the English Language

Purposely Professional: Building a Professor Look AKA The Grey Lady

So I struggled all semester with not looking professional enough for my job. I keep telling anyone who would listen that HBCUs are FANCY, all caps, and I felt from the first faculty meeting that I didn't fit. Like I was seriously concerned about it, but as the semester got going I had a lot of things to juggle in my first semester, so it went to the bottom of the pile.

I've never done well with this- I failed Girl Shit in Life, theatre just required me to wear black and comfortable boots and high school teaching really just slacks and clothing where your bits were covered. They were usually more concerned with you actually showing up every day than anything else. At the beginning of the semester (like the first week) a student made fun of my clothes, and while you'd think 43 and decades of teaching high school would make me immune, it didn't. In fact my clothes and shoes were made fun of just about all semester. I laughed it off, and didn't respond, but man, it hurt. Some of the comments were just calling my stuff ugly. Others were more gendered, specific, and made me really uncomfortable, like telling me I was dressed like a lesbian which is a whole other thing.

As posts on Twitter the last few weeks have reminded me, a female professor's clothing and look is a common focus on student evaluations. I don't have mine yet, so I don't know if it came up, but I know I heard comments about my appearance all semester long, and it was these that made me want to dress different, better, yes to match what other female faculty and staff were wearing but too, to stop hearing about it.

At the end of the semester, as I had some time to breathe, I did a little better, but still, something I need to work on in the spring. And again, students commented here- when I wore make up, when I dressed "better." Honestly? The positive comments bugged me as much as the negative ones because women should not be judged by their appearance. What I'm wearing has zero impact on how I engage students, teach scholarship, present readings. Yet I can guarantee that my male colleagues aren't dealing with this crap. But, as much as I don't like the unfair system it is the reality.

I joked the other week on Twitter that my fashion sense really was locked in 25 years ago with Buffy Summers and Piper Halliwell. I mean think about it- simple pieces, comfortable for fighting and moving in, a bit of fancy here and there, but nice looking and practical. You could do worse.






My building complicates professional dress a bit- my office will be comfortable, but classrooms are 90, 100 degrees- on warm days the heat is blasting, on cold days the AC. It's different room to room, and no way to predict what it will be on any given day, so no way to dress for it, so it's a bit of an issue.

I'm thinking layering is a good answer, even if I have to take off the jacket or cardigan, I can at least START the class looking professional. But still, I had to figure out a balance between professional clothes I can teach in and survive the day in. So I started thinking and doing some reading and experimenting.

I still hate hair in my face, unfortunately it still looks awful at this length pulled back, but there's not a lot I can do about that.

I can wear make up for work, but I'm not wearing foundation or blush or lipstick (I always put it on crooked). OR mascara that won't survive eastern North Carolina rain.

My clothes seem like the place for the biggest improvements.

My minimalism extends to everything except my t-shirt collection, so I spent some time over break revisiting minimalism in general, but my wardrobe in particular. I don't have a lot of stuff, I upgraded my shoes/boots for work, things that were comfy for standing all day (1 set of Rockport boots and 2 pairs of Danskos) because it seemed like shoes were one way to look fancier, but there's no way you're ever getting me in 4" heels.

So that was done. But then I started to think, what else could I do? In revisiting some of my minimalism blogs and articles I liked many mentioned some version of a pared down wardrobe, and many mentioned choosing a color scheme for it so that everything went with everything.

This got me thinking. And I think this was in the back of my mind when I picked out my glasses, because these are the ones I picked- I liked the lightness of the material, the plastic means no nose thingies to get stuck in my hair, and the grey/clear frames.



So I started to think, what if I chose a single color for the majority of my work clothes? It would help everything look pulled together, it would all match, even if the shades were different, and grey as a base color would go with everything in my existing closet.

Also, it totally means I can embrace my Grey Lady, Gandalf vibe.



So this was partly a purge, going through my closet and getting rid of things I haven't worn in months, and given the heat/AC at work, won't. I dumped a few blazers I don't wear, same with vests, and a few shirts and cardigans. I've gotten a lot better about buying things that go together, but did do some panic buying in August for the new job, and whether they're scratchy, uncomfortable, or just meh, some things did not work out and I've never worn them. If I haven't worn then in 6 months I'm not going to, and someone else might like them so they go.

I also went through socks, which somehow always creeps up and gets out of control like there are freaking Gremlins in my sock basket. There are 7 days in a week, so I need 7 pairs of sweat socks for walking Nehi/running, and 5 for work days, warm and cold weather. No matter how you do math that is not a gazillion socks, so away they go. Plus, I got funny, sarcastic socks for Christmas and needed to follow my "one in, one out" rule. I usually get rid of way more than I ever buy to replace. So, once I cleared everything out, I looked at what I had and thought about what pieces I could add that would fit with what I was going for.

Here's what I went with:

• Another pair of grey Docker's
• A pair of grey jeans
• Button down grey shirt, one collared, one priest collar
• A couple of fancy-ish grey t-shirts (to wear under blazer or cardigan)
• A grey tunic top

I already had a grey blazer and a great comfy grey cardigan, so I just need to focus on wearing them more. The bonus of paring down is also that the things you DO have get more rotation. I also have a grey multi sweater and a light feeling, dark grey sweater. A lot of my wardrobe is blue, or black, or white- I tend to like solid colors, simple things, so all this will fit. My plan is to use the grey as a foundation- so each day one base grey piece. It should pull everything together, and has the bonus of being a signature look, in a way my compulsive, choose comfort over anything else, way.

I made a collage for some ideas, so the stuff below is roughly what I'm aiming for. I only teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Fridays are spirit days, so I figure fancy-er on Monday and Wednesday (read button down shirts and blazers) and Mister Rogers more accessible (cardigans and tees) on Tuesday and Thursday when I just have office hours and meetings. Plus on those days I'm hoping to bike to work, so that works too.



Add my grey infinity scarf, making an effort with earrings and make up, and I think it will be the balance between my work being fancy and me being comfortable.

I have my Carhartt grey, nice backpack and a grey bag-bag, so that's set.

We'll see.

I will say that even though it's just a couple of things I bought I am excited about it all, and I could not tell you the last time I was ever excited about girl-shit.

I can tell you now, because I'm teaching a lot of the same students in the spring that I had in the fall that I am going to hear about my clothes come January. I guess I just hope that maybe they mention it once and leave me alone, because I really do hate it, it really does make me feel awful, because I KNOW it's something I don't do well in, and it is so personal. Plus, I think this professional look is something I can stick with, so I won't have to make any changes, so maybe if this is just how I look from now on it won't be something worth mentioning.

Call for Papers: (Don’t) Look Back: Our Nostalgia for Horror and Slasher Films

Call for Papers:
(Don’t) Look Back: Our Nostalgia for Horror and Slasher Films
Editors: Karrȧ Shimabukuro and Wickham Clayton

On first consideration it may not seem like “nostalgia” and horror and slasher films have any clear connections. Usually nostalgia is applied to events and experiences that have a pleasant connotation, even if these pleasant feelings are a result of a rose-tinted view of the past. While nostalgia can refer to personal feelings as well as larger communal or cultural memory and pleasure, there is also an implied action to it- that someone is seeking to reclaim, or revisit a specific time period or place for an explicit reason. Applying this understanding to remakes, revisions, reimaginings helps us understand what the purpose of these reworked creations are, the work they’re doing, and how they build on and expand on an already understood and accepted set of narratives, tropes, characters, and beliefs.
Since the national and global trauma of 9/11 we have seen dozens of remakes, reboots, revisions, and reimaginings of horror and slasher films from the 1970s and 80s. Each work seeks to capture some element of the original- the simple understanding of good and evil, the audience reaction to scares, an aesthetic homage, the commercial popularity. If we shift our perspective to view these films through the lens of nostalgia, we can see that many of these narratives are grounded in trauma, the performance of it, the aftermath, how people survive and later work through it. Whether it is a movie, mini-series, television show, or video game, these remakes can be organized according to several subtopics that perform different work within the media and reflect different fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment, although the argument could be made that some texts belong in a variety of categories, and there is noticeable overlap.
Movies such as Carrie (2013) , Prom Night (2008), The Fog (2005), Piranha (2010), and Piranha 3DD (2012), My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009), Friday the 13th (2009), Predators (2010), The Predator (2018), and Fright Night (2011) as well as the television show Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018) all seek to recapture the pleasant memories either of the creator upon their first exposure, or the often initial teenage experience of the audience. It’s also worth noting remakes that seek to capture this feeling and audience reception but fail as is the case with Pet Semetary (2019) and Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) or remakes of films that were considered cult classics, or lacked the recognition of many of these titles such as Sorority Row (2009). While many of these movies have trauma as their inciting incident, or backstory, films such as The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Amityville Horror (2005), and The Thing (2011), explicitly deal with trauma in their narratives. A large number of remakes seek to correct or revise perceived errors, erasures, or missteps in the original source material. Certainly this is true in The Shining (1997 mini-series), The Stand (1994 and in production 2020), The Last House on the Left (2009), Straw Dogs (2011), Suspiria (2018), and Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). Some texts like The Haunting of Hill House (2018-present) begin as a revision but ultimately go deeper, seeking to uncover a narrative within the source material. With the explosion of streaming services, alternative storytelling, and multimedia narratives, we’re seeing more and more adaptations that use horror or slasher narratives as their foundation but create their own stories from them. Bates Motel (2013-2017), The Exorcist (2016-2018), Doctor Sleep (2019), Castle Rock (2018-present), The Conjuring (2013), and Hannibal (2013-2015) all fit this category.
This edited collection would seek contributions that view these and other texts through this lens of nostalgia, how these remakes, reboots, revisions, and reimagings are the vehicle for the anxieties and concerns of a particular moment, and what work they are doing. We’re particularly interested in contributions that analyze texts that interact with the source material in new and interesting ways, deconstruct tropes and styles innate to these genres, as well as the application of adaptation and fan studies to these works. The editors are accepting proposals for chapters focusing on nostalgia in horror after 9/11. Topics for contributions, focused through a lens of nostalgia, can address, but are not limited to:
-Case studies that relate to nostalgia as:
-Theoretical approaches to understanding horror and trauma
-Understanding socio-political and economic cultural contexts
-Pleasures of horror nostalgia post- 9/11
-Slashers, subtexts, and tonal intensification
-Paranormal embodiments of contemporary fears

Proposals should be submitted by 31 March 2020 to Karrá Shimabukuro khkshimabukuro@gmail.com and Wickham Clayton wickscripts@hotmail.com. First drafts due 31 December 2020. We welcome questions and expressions of interest at any stage.

Your Christmas Elf is a Devil: Elves, Fairies, Demons, and Krampus

This tweet went around a few weeks ago, and I giggled and passed it along.

But as much as it did make me laugh, I can't seen to get it out of my head. Then yesterday I saw a thread of (inaccurate) tweets that made me come back to this idea.

In the 1995 movie The Prophecy, Thomas Dagget, the errant priest turned cop says:
Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, He sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?

I always think the same of elves. Elves are not good people, they are not cute, they are not sweet, they will not clean your house (that's brownies).

Santa is first identified as "a right jolly old elf" in Clement Clark Moore's 1823 "A Visit from St. Nicholas" poem. Yet his portrayal as an elf is a departure from other elf descriptions and actions dating all the way back to Old English and Old Norse. The dark implications of Santa as elf are often purposely ignored or erased from portrayals and meanings. Quite a few Old English texts are elf-charms, medicinal solutions to how not to die from poisoned elf-darts. The term in Old English is ælf and álfr in Old Norse. The origin of elves is nebulous, but their associations are not. In Old Norse and Old English poetry, they are connected to the Aesir and Vanir gods and often associated with dwarves, giants, and other supernatural creatures. They are not human, and in texts where they appear their actions and powers are often described as unnatural, uncanny even. Even after Christianity became the norm, elves were still an accepted and common figure, and while they could be capricious, occasionally acting on whims that benefited humans, for the most part they are not good, moral figures. As befits their original appearances, they often acted in ways that made sense only to them, serving their own interests. Different texts offered different descriptions and motivations but they were fairly consistently described as not-human, visually recognizable as such, and therefore not "us" and therefore not to be trusted. In the opening of Beowulf, they are named as one of many races of monsters, "unspeakable offspring" that are released and awakened, set loose. They are creatures of evil, denied and who deny God's presence and authority. They are associated with Grendel, tainted with the sin of Cain, murder. 

https://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html

Several Old English texts associate the devil with darkness, where the darkness is understood as the physical manifestation of his sin, the fact that he was unholy, unlit by God's light.Genesis A and B connect the devil to the dark, the cloud, and the smoke: “seomodon swearte,” “geseah deorc gesweorc,” “semian sinnihte,” “sweart under roderum” and “sweartean helle.” Christ and Satan also makes this association, “swarte and sunfulle,” “blace hworfon/scinnan forscepene,” “dimme and deorce,” and “swearte.” Juliana also uses darkness as a physical and spiritual descriptor for the devil, “sweartra synna” and “þegnas of þystrum” (Caedmon, and George Philip Krapp. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition Volume I The Junius manuscript . (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931)). Grendel is associated with perpetual darkness “sinnihte” and covered in mist, “mistige moras.” Christ and Satan also connects this darkness with the concept of miserable or evil spirits “atole gastas” (Caedmon, and George Philip Krapp. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition Volume I The Junius manuscript . (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931) and “werige gastas” (R.D Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 2008).  Guthlac A describes the devil as “se werga gǣst,” (George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition Volume III The Exeter Book. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931) the cursed spirit. Juliana refers to the devil she encounters as an “unclǣne gǣst.” (Krapp and Dobbie, The Exeter Book). Beowulf describes Grendel as the dark spirit, “se grimma gǣst” and a cursed spirit, “wergan gǣstes” (R.D Fulk et al, Klaeber’s Beowulf ). Elves appear in a variety of genres, and cover a variety of topics, appearing in many Old English manuscripts.

While these descriptions concur on the darkness of evil, both literal and metaphorical, the animal characteristics of the devil, and of elves, appear at roughly the same time. A detail of 66r of The Eadwine Psalter (c. 1155-60) shows demons attacking a psalmist. The figures have dark caps, wings, tails, and pointed ears. Both Alaric Hall and Karen Jolly's work understand these figures as elves.

The Harley 37 (1st half of the 11th century) shows a similar figure and activity just left of center. These figures have no caps, but we can see their wings, and their colored bodies distinguish them visually from the rest of the scene. Not only are the poses similar, but the arrows in the human figures evoke the descriptions of elf-shot, and elf-darts.

Viljoen argues that Beowulf and the other texts in the codex “were part of the so-called “popular culture.” Liuzza argues that representations of the devil, and how he is used in these texts is key to “understanding the worldview of Anglo-Saxon Christians.”  If we take each of these scholars’ work as a whole we can argue that the presentation of the devil in these texts is part of Anglo-Saxon popular beliefs and culture, and we can see the connections between elves and devils, both functioning as folkloric figures, vehicles for the anxieties, desires, and fears of a time.

Alexander Makhov's work argues that the visual rhetoric of the devil, his darkness, his animal nature, is both a reflection of the devil's sinful nature and a warning to everyone else that he is unnatural, against God, shunned. In Continental European devils we see this in the misplacement of eyes and faces on joints, chicken arms or legs placed in odd positions, exaggerated joints, colors, animal traits seemingly randomly tacked on. The English devil is dark in color, with wings, horns, pointed ears, claws, and often a tail.

The Guthlac Roll (c.1000) illustrates the trials and tribulations of Saint Guthlac, whose story is told in the Old English Guthlac A and Guthlac B. The devils torment Guthlac, and try to lure him away from God's light and defend their own land that Guthlac now occupies. Here we see devils who are dark, animal in nature, with pointed ears, tails, horns, and claws. 

We can also read these presentations as anti-Semitic for the caricature of the devils noses. Jews were frequently demonized, literally and visually, in the beginning of the medieval period, for both association with demons, and presented as demonic figures themselves.

We see this same type of figure in the Upper margin of the Exchequer Receipt Roll, Hilary and Easter Terms, 1233.

These visually different representations indicate the purpose of these figures whether or not they are elves or devils. The visual rhetoric of the animalistic, dark, different figure emphasizes his political purpose, marking him as different, not ‘us.’ The English could then define themselves in opposition, they were English because they were not that, with that standing in for whoever the enemy of the time was, bad leaders, politicians, rebels.

The popular belief of devils as dark, and visually different continues throughout the medieval period, most notable on stage. In mystery plays there are two sources for the appearances of devils onstage; their own dialogue descriptions and the REED which details the costumes and props used by devil characters in these plays. “One of the reasons devils endured on stage was that the material base of culture changed very little throughout the time they were popular” (Cox 5). 

Onstage devil characters in their black costumes, hoods, and masks performed their visual difference. In addition to this they also described themselves in contrast to what they used to be – angels not devils, light not dark, which also emphasized their visual difference not just from us but from their former selves. In both we see an emphasis on darkness and visual difference. Medieval popular drama marked the devil as visually different by presenting him as dark, in contrast not only to paler, human skin, but also as representative of dark as in denied of God’s light. Records of Early English Drama note a large number of characters identified as devils, Sathan, Lucifer, and demon (e.g REED Coventry 185, 254, 259). 

The devil is not just identifiable by his color, his darkness, but also by a specific visual difference. The 1433 record of the Mercers’ Pageant for the Feast of Corpus Christi described the devils as having “deulles faces,” associated with the hell mouth their costumes are described as being in “garmentes for iij deuels” (REED York 55) implying that the devils’ costumes and masks/faces are visually different from the other characters. Later 1526 records support this describing “dewell cottes” and “dewell heddes” under the Mercer pageant (REED York 241) implying a visual difference from the costumes ofother actors/characters but also stressing that human characters wore no masks.. The Cambridge records from 1546-7 lists “devils cote deathes cote/blak slops” (REED Cambridge 146) indicating that it was not just the mask but the color black that marked devils. We see this with Belyal the black in The Castle of Perseverance (15^th c.) and forward to Peg’s demonic gentleman dressed all in black in The Late Lancashire Witches (1634).

Devil characters also used blackface to mark themselves as visually different connecting common understandings of devils, evil, darkness, and race. The 1546-7 Cambridge inventory has the Spanish clothed in black like the devils and we can make the logical association that this is meant to demonize the Spanish (REED Cambridge 147). Onstage as in the physical descriptions in popular literature multiple types of enemies re associated with the devil through looks. The hood (cottes) also connects devils to the Death figure (For a comprehensive examination of the iconography of the hood see Alison Kinney’s excellent 2016 publication Hood.)

This visual rhetoric continues throughout the early modern period, the best examples seen on pamphlets that used the image of a dark devil indicated the demonic nature of the person, or group, demonized within the pamphlet. During the English Civil Wars Royalists demonized Republicans and vice versa. London was frequently described as Hell, a consequence of letting demonic influences gain power in England.

The medieval period tended not to demonize fairies, instead they were folkloric figures like brownies, gnomes, and others who were described as more mischievous than demonic figures . 

"In 1584 the demonologist Reginald Scot wrotethat fear of witches had superseded the fear of fairies." In Demonologie (1597) James I dedicates an entire chapter to fairies, both dismissing them as myth and "illusions createdby the devil." Darren Oldridge "argues that English Protestants associated fairies with Satan, but this did not necessarily imply that fairies were reclassified as demons. Rather, they were embedded in a complex of beliefs that connected them with falsehood, Catholicism, and the invisible wiles of the Devil."

In addition to their visual appearance, elves and devils are also linked for their actions and purpose. Elves and devils are both know for using tricks, guile, artifice, in their interactions with humans. Old English texts such as Elene and Juliana as well as later works such as The Shewings of Julian Norwich and The Book of Margery Kempe, describe devils tormenting pure, saintly women, and accomplishing things through fraud, guile, and deceit. A common trope in medieval literature is a shapeshifting figure, fairy or demon, who seduces a young woman.

Elves and devils are generally understood and described only as male, while in the early modern period male fairy figures like Robin Goodfellow are given more authority, but there are female fairies. There is something to be made of the fact that the vehicle for our fears, anxieties, and concerns are male. By the time female fairies appear they have moved past their demonic connections and have been reconstructed as more whimsical nature spirits.

So what to make of Santa Claus defined as an elf? Should we fear his supernatural status? His ability to break into our homes through locks, and past safety measures? Should we wonder what happens if he uses his time travel or flight for ill-use? Are the elves that work under him a happy union or collective or are we sponsoring enslavement? While these may seem like silly questions, it is worth stopping to interrogate the assumptions and beliefs we have about him, what that says about us and our historical and cultural moment. He's often described as having, or being associated with, Christmas magic, and certainly his accomplishments are supernatural in nature. But how and why in 2019 is this not a thing that gives us pause? Millions of people around the world, regardless of religion or ethnicity or culture accept at least the idea, the belief, in a large, white male elf with magical and supernatural powers, as a key figure to the winter holiday season.

In order to understand his characterization as an elf, we need to consider his function and origin and reorient our perspective a bit. Santa Claus is a revision of St. Nicholas, and "Nicholas rose to prominence among the saints because he was the patron of so many groups. By about 1200, explained University of Manitoba historian Gerry Bowler, author of Santa Claus: A Biography, he became known as a patron of children and magical gift bringer because of two great stories from his life."

Phyllis Siefker's Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of Saint Nicholas, Spanning 50,000 Years is a wonderful look at the figure in context.

http://victorian-era.org/clement-clarke-moore.html/clement-clarke-moore-the-night-before-christmas

https://www.depaulatrading.com/blogs/news/the-legend-of-krampus-youll-wish-you-got-coal

Just as the negative connotations of Santa as elf have been erased, so too has the connection between Santa and Krampus. In recent years, the figure of Krampus has seen a popular revival. He is often described as the anti-Santa, the one who punishes bad children while Santa rewards the good. While part of his popularity can be attributed to the fun idea of horror at Christmas, I think his reappearance and popularity goes deeper.These are not two separate figures but two figures who serve similar purposes. They represent balance and justice, they work together, not apart. One cannot exist without the other. On the calendar it is actually Krampus who visits first with Krampusnacht on 5 December and St. Nicholas' Day on 6 December. The wicked are punished, the good who are left are then rewarded. Yet this pairing has always been artificial. The origins of St. Nicholas, tracing his trajectory is easy but Krampus' origins are harder to pin down than his elf, fairy, devil brethren. "In fact, Krampus' roots have nothing to do with Christmas. Instead, they date back to pre-Germanic paganism in the region." Google "Krampus" and you will encounter a lot of "legend argues..." and "Norse mythology says..." The truth is messier. Folklore is messy. It is the beliefs and stories of a culture, so much of its nature is oral and it can be decades, centuries before oral stories are set down in the written record, where it becomes easier to trace a character or trope. 

But in folklore we also tend to not privilege written over oral narratives, focusing instead on beliefs, variations of tropes, and importance. Keeping this in mind, let's return to how Krampus' origins are most often presented:

Krampus, whose name is derived from the German word krampen, meaning claw, is said to be the son of Hel in Norse mythology. The legendary beast also shares characteristics with other scary, demonic creatures in Greek mythology, including satyrs and fauns.

The key elements that are repeated again and again, no matter the geography or culture of the narrative, is that Krampus is dark and animal in appearance. He is associated with Hel, the goddess of the underworld in the Poetic Edda. Some legends say he is her son. In Norse mythology the underworld is found in the North, full of ice, snow, and cold.

Again we have the ideas of balance and justice. Unlike Christian portrayals of Hell, Norse mythology does not portray the afterlife as punishment per se, but as a natural coda to life on Earth. It is just what comes after, a large geographic place that contains multitudes- heroes go to Valhalla, sefarers who die at sea may go "to the underwater abode of the giantess Ran." When Snorri Sturluson, a Christian historian writing in the thirteenth century" writes down many of these tales, he does shade the underworld as a less than neutral place, describing it more as a reward- Valhalla, and punishment-Hel, system.

We do know that we can start to trace Krampus roughly 1500 years ago, with his association with Santa. We do know that his revival in the last few years can be read as a need, a desire, for balance, a sense of justice. In a world where abusers still make money, are set free, face little to any consequences for their behavior-Woody Allen, Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes,  C.K. Louis, Chris Hardwick, Johnny Depp (sadly the list goes on and on) it's not hard to understand why the presentation that there are clear consequences for evil behaviors, where men are punished, dealt with, face justice, would appeal to audiences.

Each of these figures, elves, fairies, and demons/devils are used throughout literature to represent specific issues. They are used to represent people we fear, or threats we construct.  Their appearance is a visual warning of the danger they represent. As the world seems to make less and less sense, both the idea that there is a system of justice, where the bad guy is easily identifiable, it is perhaps unsurprising that we collectively want a figure that we know is evil and a threat from first sight, who will mete out justice to those who deserve it. A sense of clarity in opposition to false information and gaslighting is a welcome presentation.

But I also think that the reverse is true. We can read erasing Santa's elvish, darker nature, discarding the elements deemed undesirable for selling millions of dollars of plastic crap, as a reflection of what we collectively see wrong int he world around us. Santa is no longer St. Nick who gives to those who are in need, or even Father Christmas, who rewards the good. Now he is a whitewashed (literally) figure who is used to market and reinforce the ever-growing need for more things, bigger things, more expensive things. The figure has become divorced from the meaning and instead has been re-inscribed with a different purpose, like some horrible golem. Rather than act for the good of others, a model of charity and gift-giving, he is now the figure who cons you into buying into a capitalistic fantasy.

How I Frakked Up About Hard Deadlines

Google "no late work" and the image results are pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

I cringe at most of these. They are cruel, they are arbitrary. They also seem really unnecessary.

But today I realized (too late) that hard deadlines no matter what form, are exactly the same. 

First, some background: This semester all my classes did grade conferences. All my classes had 75% of their grade as class activities. Come, participate and you're guaranteed a passing "C." These activities were formative, graded on completion rather than mastery of skills. 25% of their grade were summative assignments, major writing assignments. They could revise for a higher grade, and the last month of the semester I allowed them to make up any missing class activities by attending campus events and doing a short write up. There was a hard deadline for making up missing work or submitting revised work- two weeks before the end of the semester.

I can tell you that my logic for this was based on grading contracts- come and do your best and you'll pass, that allowing to make up and revise work helps them, that a hard deadline would enable them to clear the decks so to speak and focus on their writing portfolio.

But I realized a couple of big things, and I realized them in staggering order.

First, I realized that my no attendance, no penalty for late work policies, which I have to enable students to be adults and prioritize what they needed, enabled them to do just that, especially at the end of the semester, so they did. Like John Warner I initially wondered, "why don't you want to come to MY class..."

Then I realized that I was taking this personally, that my class was functioning exactly the way it was supposed to. 

Second, I realized as students attended campus events to make up zeroes for missed class assignments that I had a flaw in the system and an inspiration. A lot of students commented that they liked that this made them go to events, which they enjoyed, but would not normally have gone to. So I made a profile of a campus resource a major writing assignment for composition. The flaw was that I intended the class activities to act as a grading contract, encouraging them to come to class. But then I paradoxically gave zeroes for missed days, which seemed to counter my no attendance policy/no penalty approach, and then countered myself AGAIN by not letting students make these up, because they were "in class" activities, and then, because apparently I'm rubbish, countered myself AGAIN by letting them make them up with campus activity write ups at the end of the semester.

I'm exhausted just writing that. I can't imagine what my students felt, although not a single one mentioned this in their cover letters.

Also, this was all in my syllabus, so I'm "covered" I guess, but I'm confessing now, that was a bunch of BS. I got hung up on letter of the law and lost the forest for the trees (and apparently mixed my metaphors).

IF I wanted students to come to class because it was interesting, and they learned things BUT ALSO be able to prioritize what they needed to then, I could not grade in any way class activities they had to be present for. So, next semester upper level classes grade conference at midterms and finals and composition classes only have three major writing assignments and their writing portfolio, each counting 25%. I'm still going to do the class activities. I'll still ask them to turn things in so I can see where they are. I'm just not going to grade them. I'm going to use them, they just won't go into the gradebook. Here is where I feel the need to point out that well-intentioned, up on the research, teachers can still screw up royally because we're countering decades of how we taught and were taught. It's not an excuse. But I hope it conveys how different a lot of things would be if we taught grading and assessment in a very different way from the beginning.

The hard deadlines though is where I really frakked up, and I'll tell you why- if a student did the work why would I not grade it?

I had a few of students who came in today, for most their final exam period for my class, and they ran the spectrum (came to class, were passing, haven't seen in weeks, failing a lot, could not remember their name it'd been so long since I'd seen them, etc.), who with a sheaf of papers in hand asked if I would take their work.

And I said no. 

I explained that there had been a hard deadline to turn in missing or revised work, that the deadline as 25 November, that this was announced repeatedly in class and on Blackboard, and that this deadline was passed.

And suddenly I'm the principal in Dangerous Minds who turns the kid away because he didn't knock. And I feel like a piece of shit.

I can rationalize that this was the policy, it was announced, it was emphasized, it would not be fair to bend rules for today's students when so many others met deadline. I can rationalize that if I haven't seen them since October their work probably would not have been passing, that there's a bit of truth to seat time. I can tell you my logic behind this decision- that it would enable me time to grade all the make up work so going into the last day of class they'd have their accurate grade, that it would enable them to focus on finals.

But, and let me say this very clearly, this was wrong. *I* was wrong.


I did grade conferences, there is no work to grade. I do not have a pile of 150 essays to get through. I have no rubrics to circle. I've been sitting in my office looking at Baby Not-Yoda gifs and writing blog posts. Part of the rationale, that I know I'm not alone in, is the "but what if no one did any work on time and everyone waited until the last minute?"

First, this will never happen. They're juggling lots of classes and other responsibilities, they won't do this to themselves.
Second, if it did, in some bizarro world, then there would just be a really long line down the hallway as folks waited to grade conference.
That's it, that's the nightmare scenario.  A queue.

And the fear of that, that inconsequential thing, caused me to be a jerk.

It would have cost me nothing to sit down with those three students today, grade conference with them, talk to them. While in each case it would probably not have been enough to raise a 30 or 40 to a passing 75, they would have been heard. They would have been listened to. Maybe that moment would be enough to get them to reflect, come back, do better. I was petty and there is no good reason for it. Another student asked to make up a class activity and I said no for the same reason. This was unkind.

No student disappears from a class for no reason. The first few weeks I always email checking in, but honestly, if they don't answer, three weeks of emails is usually when I stop. And now I feel like shit because who gives up on a student?

Any rationalization is the kind of gate-keeping bullshit ego trip I hate, and could have sworn I didn't suffer from. It's ego to lecture them about deadlines. They know. It's ego to say no instead of asking, how are you, what's going on? It's ego to think I'm in the right and they're not. It is ego to somehow think I'm teaching them a lesson about responsibility, or coming to class, or reading the syllabus. To take it personally that they didn't come to my class, touch base with me, talk to me, let me know what was going on.

I was that dick professor.

So next semester I've taken my hard deadlines away. 
Instead my composition syllabus says:

When you turn in your major writing assignments you’ll meet with me to discuss it.  I will ask you what grade you think you deserve and why based on what we, as a class, determined the assignment should include.

• For these grade conferences you should have a copy (hard or electronic) of your assignment and be prepared to answer that question, using support/evidence from your assignment
• I suggest you take notes on the feedback you receive, next steps, ways to improve

• There is no penalty for late work, and you can grade conference any missing work until the final exam day and time
• Once the schedule grade conference day for each major writing assignment has passed I put in Fs for missing work so your grade is always up to date and accurate, so you can make your own academic choices and prioritize work
• Deadline to grade conference any missing or revised work is the scheduled final exam time
• You must earn a “C” (75%) in Composition to receive

But my intent does not negate the impact on those students.

So I can only realize what a colossal frak up this all was, reflect, admit I was wrong, and design a better way for next time.

I think it's important to be public and open about these things.

I also think we really, REALLY need to start teaching teachers a different and better way.