Broken Lands: Scenes from Rural NC, an Introduction

I once spent a summer in the mountains of Vermont and went on a tour at a historic site and remember the leader saying that all the forests we saw were less than a hundred years old, that all of this land used to be cleared farms but that the forest reclaimed the land once it was no longer actively farmed. I drive a lot in the surrounding counties as part of my volunteering as a Guardian ad Litem and I always enjoy looking around. 

I have always been fascinated with the idea of the stories and histories of buildings. When we lived down on the Outer Banks it was a trek of a couple of hours to the airport for pickups and drop offs. I remember watching a single house on the side of the road go from abandoned to falling down, to just the chimney, to, when I drove past the area the last couple years, no trace at all remained. 

I am interested in how stories and histories can be read in the parcels of land, the houses built on them. A lot of the land here is close to water, sounds, rivers, creeks. Even if you can't see it you can smell it. Most of the land around here has spent the last three hundred years as farmland, although the changes of the last hundred years is clear in the plots, the houses that are now on them.

In some cases you can trace the decline of local farms plot by plot. It's pretty easy to spot the older (original) farmhouses. There are the smaller houses, less well built, spaced out, that are probably connected to sharecroppers, existing at the same time as the older houses, but in totally different universes. You can see the big sell offs during the 1940s and 1950s with the groups of brick ranches as farmers sold edges of land to pay taxes, make it to another year. The decades since of economic ups and downs are seen in the huge houses spread out, with lots of several acres, the smaller simpler wood homes, the rows of trailers. You can see which places were once communities, neighborhoods, but now are abandoned, slowly disappearing back into the woods.

Because so much of this land is still farmland, although not what it once was, you can tell a lot from the plots that remain. You can see the small plots that people have managed to hold onto, the smaller crops they manage, probably selling at smaller markets if not at the corner of their property, making what they can. It's also really easy to see just how precarious all of it is. The last week or so we've finally gotten some rain, and the corn is having a growth spurt, now about three feet high. But a couple of weeks ago the land was dusty, the precious soil blowing away, the corn barely six inches high and whole crops in danger of not making it.

Lots of places live on a razor's edge, I just think it's a little easier to see here, to be aware of it.

It's gorgeous country. It's rich in awful, buried, ignored history, both big events and small. The enslaved labor camps that while smaller here than most people see images of, are still awful sites that continue to be romanticized. The history of an area that depended so often through its history on unsustainable commodities- river transportation, rosewood harvesting, things that are overexploited, obsolete, leaving towns broke, empty, ghost towns. Here history is known by some, but rarely shared and known by all. History here is a lot of secrets everyone knows. And ignores.

Anyway, I think I might start taking my actual camera on trips and try not to risk my life stopping on narrow two lane country rows where people drive 60 plus mph and start documenting some of these things, writing things up, maybe researching some of the history of these plots, the people who lived here. Not big stories, but all the small stories.

Death as Disruption

 I can't get this image out of my head.

Thomas Rowlandson, The English Dance of Death, ca. 1815-1817.

All year, although it's more than a year now, I keep coming back to this image. Death sitting on the world, time running out, it's an image that has spoken to me outside of the original historical context. Death's Dance keeps on, while the current world just pretends it does not exist. Death's face- is it sad? Resigned? Disappointed? Just tired? 

I've been thinking a lot about death as disruption. 

I haven't heard from someone in a while, sent a card, never heard back, which is unusual. My paranoid, anxious brain has of course imagined they are dead. I'm well aware that I could just email or call and see. But it got me thinking- I'm not family, so maybe their actual family wouldn't know to call me. Maybe to them I'm just another name in the address book. Am I in the address book? If it's younger folks, maybe they lack ability to know how to track people down? If it was unexpected, as so much death is these days, maybe there was no will, no plan, no instructions for getting into digital accounts. 

I know many of us have lost people, continue to needlessly lose people, have heard of colleagues or acquaintances who are gone. I wonder how many others we just have not heard about yet. I wonder at how grief is lurking, waiting for us. I wonder how this all gets stretched out, delayed, even as so many people continue to die. 

I wonder about people who are not important enough, famous enough, for anyone even to know. A thought I've had quite a lot the last five years is how little I matter in the grand scheme of things. I could die today and no one would know. Eventually the SPCA would probably get a welfare check done in a few weeks when I didn't communicate about the foster kittehs. The head of summer school might check in if I didn't make my class live in a couple of weeks. I have a will, a lawyer to settle all my accounts, distribute money to mushing charities. But who else would know? Nobody. The real kicker? Who would notice or care? Again, nobody. I've spent a good chunk of the last five years making my peace with that.

8 June was my five year semi-colon anniversary. It was ten years on Valentine's Day since Mom died. I've spent most of those ten years thinking about death. At first my thoughts about death were odd, disjointed. I spent weeks, months, sobbing uncontrollably, the littlest thing setting me off. Desperately wanting her to come back. I still have dreams where she has come back to life and I don't know how to tell anyone. Immediately after her death people were kind, they reached out. But I learned there's a short shelf life before people move on. The world moved on and I was just stuck. Frozen. Unable to do anything. What few casual friends I had stopped checking in. Calling. Anything. Many made contact months and years later and just ignored that she had died, not even mentioning it, or mentioning it casually, oh I heard, I'm sorry.

Yet her death continued to disrupt my life.

My life was disrupted when it was decided that everything of hers had to go. Boxed up, cleaned up, given away. She was a pack rat so it was a lot. But it was also things I wasn't ready for.

Still people kept moving. And I was still not. The easiest way I could explain it is that life stopped that day. Everything hit pause. Then in like one of those weird movie scenes, I stayed still, in place, and everything else gradually (and not so gradually) sped up around me, kept moving, leaving me behind. I moved, I finished my PhD, I changed jobs, I moved again, I changed jobs again, and yet, still stuck.

I read Swedish Death Cleaning, I pared down most of what I owned to the minimum I could get by on (mostly, my graphic tee collection is still a lot), not wanting to leave behind a mess for others. I don't set emergency contacts. I have a lawyer as my executor, they will donate house contents to Goodwill, sell the house, consolidate goods, give lump sums to charities, close accounts. There will nothing for anyone not paid for it to deal with. I've made it all as easy as I can.

I look at the Christmas decorations Mom loved, that I no longer put out, they just sit in the garage, and I wonder what the point is. I am not married. I have no one to pass them down to. There is no one to remember, to know the stories behind the chubby cheeked chipmunk, or the brass 1st year ornaments. There is no one to show these things to, share them with. They just sit there. They will sit in those Tupperware, and when others open them it will be totally devoid of their context.

The photos in bins have all been digitized, as the photo albums fell apart years ago. But I don't know who most of the people are in them. I don't know when they were taken. I don't know what the event was, who the party was for, why we were there, if they matter. There is no longer anyone left to tell me. For the stories I do know, there is no one for me to tell. They're just-there. 

I think a lot of people who die by suicide do it because they just don't see the point anymore. At some point it just becomes too much, there's a tipping point, and even if they were able to NOT for days, years, before, it seems like sometimes the energy supply just runs out and you just stop one day. Maybe there's a finite amount of energy, of fight we can hold. Maybe some people have that amount restored by outside things, I think many probably don't.

Usually it is the deaths of others that are the disruption to our lives. How the grief, the loss, comes in waves, hitting you even when you think you're fine, how it comes out of nowhere, and all of a sudden you're stuck again. How the disruption affects everything, your ability to do day to day things, shower, dress, eat, function. How the idea of the global death, the ignorant, senseless, uncaring attitudes have resulted in so much needless death, living with the knowledge about the kind of careless, easy evil that takes. How does anyone move forward after all of this? How do we forgive so many people who enabled this? How do we look at them? Work with them? How do we make space for the ongoing greif and loss that will define us for the rest of our lives?

I used to believe that there was something after this life. I wasn't sure what, but I believed in something. I stopped believing after Mom died. I just can't believe that there's a world where I would not have felt anything. The thing I have come to realize the last ten years is that death is meaningless. Death is nothing. There is no greater purpose, there is no good death, lives do not matter because people miss you or you did something. Lives matter. That's it. I have had a reason to make my life matter, to keep breathing every day with no external reason. I have had to decide to keep going each day in the face of the reality that it does not matter in a single instance whether or not I do.

I've been reading a lot about premodern desert Ammas. I've always loved the idea of strong, educated, dedicated women just saying "fuck this shit" to institutions and frameworks that don't have a space for them, and just leave. To make and forge new lives. One thing that strikes me again and again when reading about early Church Ammas and Abbas is that so many of the nuns, the monks, had to acknowledge their insignificance. The role pride plays in so much of our lives. That we think we're special, that we matter, that we're important. But the simple truth is most of us are not. Most of us live lives that don't matter at all, or matter to a very small circle of others. Surprisingly, I find this knowledge comforting. I don't have to find a big reason every day to keep going. The small work, the little tasks, the insignificant to just about everyone things, these are my contributions. They don't add up to anything. They're not anything that will have major influences on anything or anyone. They just are. They're daily work. It's work that if I didn't tell anyone, no one would ever know about it. There are no ripples in the pond, there is no collective impact.

Somehow, this is easier for me. I no longer fight to make my mark, matter, be noticed. The more time that goes by, the more I retreat, pare down, step away. It makes it really easy to say no to things. No, I don't have to waste time making someone I knew in high school feel better. No, I don't have to internalize your characyerization of me. No, I don't have to silently accept your racist, misogyny, bigotry. No, I don't have to try, to exert energy, to waste time. The phrase "I don't care" does not always mean you are incapable of caring, sometimes it is just that you have chosen not to care about that thing. Because there is finite energy. A finite amount of stuff. And I choose not to waste it.

I think a lot about what I'd leave behind. Notebooks that have occupied so much time and energy will just be binned. So now I write just for me. Photos I spent time scanning, caring for, sit in boxes. The few that are out are out because it means something for me to see them every day. The toys, the knick knacks in my office, are fun, but they serve no other purpose outside of me, my daily life and use. My teaching is not big, flashy, known outside of the small communities I've taught in. My scholarship is not fancy, noticed, big. It is huymbling and empowering to know that my life does not matter except for how it matters to me. To build a life with no external encouragement, importance is not easy. Our world is designed for families, couples, groups, collectives. Everything is harder if you are not part of these things. From small things like food portions at the store, to big things like no one to take you home from the hospital. But it is possible. It's harder. Western Anglo culture doesn't except lone figures. But it can be done.

We may collectively lose, grieve, experience the disruptions of death. We may collectively make space for dealing with these things. We may collectively acknowledge them. I hope we do, but I don't know how we deal with the sheer scope of it. I don't know what comes next. Maybe we're all just traumatized for the rest of our natural lives. Maybe we all individually have to just find a way through in order to be able to GET through. Maybe everyone has to find a way to construct their lives to expect, accept, and survive the continuous disruptions because there is never going to be an end.

I don't know.

I don't believe in the after anymore. Just this.

Building Online Composition Classes in Blackboard Ultra: Intentionality and Reflection

One thing I always really liked about online teaching (not the triage of the last year and change, ongoing, but intentional online teaching) is the intentionality and reflection it can focus. I also like that we talk about building classes, constructing them. Now, I don't think that any class online or not should be totally constructed by professors. What I tend to do is build my module blocks in my Google Docs syllabus first. Then I build module folders to match those blocks in the LMS (my school uses Blackboard and has recently moved to Blackboard Ultra).  Ultra has more built in accessibility and is more restrictive and stripped down. You can't copy and past embed code anyone. You can attach items, and attached images appear in line. The alt-text is hit and miss. So differentiating items visually, which I have found really helps students, is not really an option. If you click on the module folders they open to reveal the contents. The icons for document, assignment, discussion boards are different, but it is still a lot of plain text to scroll through. 

The alt-text is not the default, so that's an issue.

Adding items are more restrictive, if it's not what they list as media, you have to attach, and that adds another layer, which is often a complaint of students.

Once I start building my class I try to think roughly in the "read this" to provide background, notes, mini-lessons that students need, then "practice" whatever skills they're focusing on, get feedback on, then they build up to the "major assignment" where they demonstrate what they have learned. When I build online classes I tend to cut a lot as I start actually building the pieces. I stop and consider whether that reading, that extra practice, is needed. One thing I may do (if I can figure out how best to design it) would be to add a piece between the practice and the major assignment, of "extra" readings or practices if students want/need them. Ideally I could add a folder within the module folder but currently Ultra won't let me do that.

The combination of ugly navigating and paring down led to me not just cutting things but also rethinking how I present them. So rather than separate chunks for read this, mini-lesson, practice, practice again, which would have been several different elements, I had to rethink them.

So, these were the original steps:

Read and annotate a reading. 

• James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers”

Read and ask questions of a reading

• Brent Staples “Black Men in Public Space”

Identify the stance, how they support that stance/argument. Ask analytical questions of the text

Resources:

• How to annotate

• Asking questions, vocabulary for asking good questions

I cut the Staples (which I hated, but also, summer school is 5 weeks. I want to add it back for semester). One thing I do tend to do in semester classes is have more practice, more chances to see growth through feedback.

With the Baldwin, I wanted students to read and annotate. So I gave them guidelines for how to annotate, and included the instructions in the assignment. So that's one chunk. Then I asked them to ask questions in a discussion board, but for the Baldwin. Then the demonstrate skills assignment was to use those activities to write a response paragraph.

This module 1 expansion is still a bit long, mainly because it has all the "getting started" stuff too.

You can compare with the module 2 expansion, which is also what module 3 and 4 look like. Notice there's not a lot here. The first assignment (shown below) has the list of topics, students choose. In my classes students always choose. I set loose parameters, but they choose. Next are the hyperlinked resources for help, and additional help if they need it as they work. The final assignment is just their submitted research, with no real parameters, they submit how they work.

I was able to reconstruct these because my focus is on the practice, feedback I'll give, and how they'll apply that. It's still skill based, just less work. In my face to face class I don't grade the in-class practice, just the major assignments, but this past year online composition students struggled with that, so for module practice they used to get just a complete, incomplete. I made their practice 75% of the final grade so even if they struggled with content, if they worked they could earn a "C" and then the major assignments were additions. I mostly ungrade in all my classes, but with the online composition classes I've struggled with how best to do this. What I'm trying this summer and the fall is that there are five modules, each is 20% and the practice and major assignments all go in that 20%. The practice is still complete/incomplete, but major assignments they write reflections for their own grades which I (except for rare instances) accept without debate. Ultra got rid of that grading schema (green check marks) so I had to figure out what to do. The solution sucks but it's the best I can do. My school does A-F grades, no plus or minuses, so I created a Letter Schema for A-F. I made "A" 90-95. I made "F" 55-59. Then I added an INC that went in as a 50 and a COM that went in as 96-100. 

Because my school just moved to Ultra (we soft launches the navigation this past year), a lot of my reflection and consideration is about what to build for my summer class with an eye for what I can use in the fall. I created a Writing Help folder that will be part of the template for all classes on campus, so I'm excited about that. I added that here. You'll notice that there are some hidden assignments in module 1 that I created then cut but will probably add back for the semester so I've just left those. We don't do evaluations in the summer but I want to add a folder towards the end that expands on the blogpost I did for students ABOUT evals, how they work, some of the pitfalls, etc.

One thing that is nice is that the announcements now are a pop up, so students have to close them before they enter the course. Hopefully they will read them. I'm a little bummed about the lack of flexibility in Ultra, especially for announcements, as I really liked posting fun, useful, embed code thingies to help inspire and guide for the week. We'll see how that works out. I build my entire course out online. Then each weekend based on emails, feedback, what I've seen in assignments, I add general notes and resources in announcements, and it needed add target extras in that week's work.

Now that the course is built I will do a short video overview of how to navigate, where to find things, and post in that first announcement. I'll also add a video intro to me.

I'm not going to know about navigating the gradebook, items, leaving feedback, until the class is live. Ultra does default to the day you create as "due date" so I had to back those out to not have due dates. I also had to set to unlimited attempts and highest grade for each assignment. 

In case anyone is interested:

Summer Composition II syllabus

My Composition I template

My Composition II template

I don't know why I put template because I redesign my classes every semester to incorporate new information, scholarship, respond to whatever is going on. I made the narrative writing for summer for students to write a photo essay, choosing a photo they think represents the last year for them. For the fall/spring, I am using Ahmed's Be the Change to center identify for the narrative. Challenging stereotypes with the "What others think I do" meme. 

I did update the Class FAQs, which is linked at the bottom of the syllabus and links to my Google Site.

I won't have long between this class ending and fall starting, so I'll have to build my fall online class, and revise/tweak as I go based on how this works. It's not ideal. But I do just have one online class, so hopefully that's okay.

I wish I had more reflection time, but I do have a lot of built in time the next 7 weeks, so hopefully I can use that.

Basic Foster Kitteh Info

I started fostering last year after Nehi died. Momma used to say that kittens were better than cable and she's not wrong. I've had a variety of fosters- some older cats and brand new litters, each with different needs. I added things as I went, and even had some students who know I foster donate some blankets and such.

At first, I was using my guest room (with bed and shelves) as the kitten room, but most of the fosters had free range over the whole house. I like having kittehs wandering around and snuggling. They do like to eat wires, unplug lamps, occassionally break glasses by knocking them off things, but that's fine.

I have learned some things the last nine months, so I thought I'd share.

I get my fosters from the local SPCA. I call or email and ask if they have fosters, they say yes, I go in and often can pick. Sometimes I take ones that need fostering for the extra help, sometimes it's kitten litters. They provide medicine, although I've had a couple of times I have taken to vet for emergencies and paid for it. They also are good about answering questions, supporting me. They're all really great.

Some resources I found helpful:

1. The Kitten Lady is THE go to
2. SPCA guide
3. General foster info
4. When Nehi died, part of the reason I considered fostering was I follow @CagleCats on Twitter. Even if you don't want to foster I recommend following, it's a lot of fun.

First, I've gotten rid of the "guest room." One thing I've learned is that having a dedicated room, even if the foster free ranges, is important, if only for the first couple of days so they don't feel overwhelmed. For bebe kittehs it's REALLY important. I often have kittehs that have upper respitory infections (URIs) and need meds, so the room really needs to be cleaned well after, and I've noticed kittehs who are sick often shed a lot, have thin fur, so it gets everywhere. So it's a whole lot easier to have an empty room and things I can just wash with bleach than having furniture, shelves, etc.

So, the room is now empty- I pared down, donated, just got rid of, moved, everything that was once in there.

I had this great kitchen metal rack (I love these things) that used to be out in the kitteh room but the last set of kittehs started climbing the towels and blankets, and while their ingenuity was cute, I did worry a bit about them falling. I also had to clean around it. So in between litters I disassembled the shelves and reassembled them in the closet.

I intended then to keep the door closed, but of course, in typical kitteh fashion, all they then wanted was to sleep on the floor on the afghans. So now the door stays open.

It is nice having everything in one place. I looked at a lot of pictures online for ideas. The shelves have:

• Carriers on top
• Bed and folded down playpen 
• Bins for toys, bins for towels and baby washclothes
• I make sure I always have wet food, dry food (kitten and big kitty, in the rolling storage), and litter on hand
• The baby gate is helpful
• Hooks on the back of the door for litter scooper, broom, swiffer mop for daily clean ups

When I first bring them home, I leave the carrier out so it's easy to "transfer" the nest. I like these carriers and bought them because the sides and top unzip, so they're great when we're in the room AND the top loading is really handy for getting them in the carrier at the shelter.

An empty tupperware on its side with a blanket is a fun snuggle spot and the clear nature makes it funny to watch them play on either side!

After the first week I put the heating pad out, wrapped in a towel, so momma can have a break.

The baby gate does not last long, they learn the climb it, but it helps for a bit. I ended up taking the gate down early with one foster litter because momma had ear infections that threw off her balance and she was having a hard time jumping the gate.

I do find this chart (which I used various online sources to make) helpful for keeping an eye on benchmarks.

My whole house has gorgeous hard wood floors, but for the kitteh room I am seriously considering putting down lighter colored wood looking vinyl just to make it easier to clean.

I also want to repaint the room (although if I could contact paper the whole place that'd probably be easier). The room has two windows (that eventually I want to widen, as I do other back windows in the house-my bedroom, bathroom, kitchen-because this is my back view, and it's gorgeous). I was thinking that I would paint the room a lighter green, bring some of this in. I also think that I will paint the room a semi-gloss like a bathroom or kitchen, because sick kittehs snot in spectacular ways and somehow poop up walls, so easy to clean is a must.

Also, sitting against the wall, covered with kittehs, staring at this view, is very soothing.

For anyone interested in fostering, I can tell you that I started with pretty much nothing. The shelter sent me home with a bag that included some toys, food, a bed, and after that first time, I bought those things, then got a thing here and there over the months.

I use an empty tupperware for a "nest." A couple of months ago I finally got a carrier. Then I got another because a momma and four kittens won't smoosh into one after six weeks. Empty food boxes are favorite toys. I use just regular food bowls. It's more about the time and energy you put in I think.

Some cats just want to snuggle with you on the couch all the time. Some will play with siblings. Everyone is different. 

You can see that the stuff needed is pretty basic. I started with very little and just got a thing or two a month.

I do plan on getting one of those towers, because the windows are high, I think the kittehs would like seeing the view.

The blue "disposable" litter trays are good, and last quite a while, and are small enough for momma and kittens to access.

Old blankets and towels work fine.

Soft baby washcloths are very handy.

You use non clumping, scentless litter because kittens eat it as toddlers and that can be disastrous if clumping. It does produce a lot of dust, hence the swiffer mop every day.

I will say this, know your limits. I don't take kittens that need bottle feeding because I don't think I can take that schedule. I've taken breaks of a week or a couple after a foster that required a lot of work. 

One of the reasons I've been able to do this is my schedule was more flexible the last year. I'm not sure what or how I'll foster come August with being back on campus all day five days a week. I may have to pull back on fostering except for breaks like winter and summer. Or take only older fosters that don't need as much. I'll have to figure that out.

The shelter did "warn" me with first super tiny bebes that all of them might not live. Some kittehs get sick and don't do well. Some have injuries. I do okay with these things. I know maybe not everyone can. I share lots of pictures online of whoever I have at the time and some people get very sad or are very affected by some things more than others. It's okay to not want/be able to deal with these. There are lots of fosters that need help.

Rethinking My Composition Class

The last few years I taught high school my teaching changed a lot because of the convergence of several ideas- grade conferences, changing how I thought about grades, which changed how I designed assessments, which led to more projects, unessays, station rotations.

My first two years in my university job I've carried these lessons with me. Each semester I've tried something different, tweaked things. I've now taught more semesters during the pandemic than I did not. I've learned that for online classes, some students dislike completing assignments just for practice and feedback with no grade associated. Some students really like suggested but no hard deadlines, others don't. Some really like only having their grade based on a final portfolio, others hate it. Grade reflections for assignments are harder online, no matter how much you guide. I'm looking forward to having students sit in front of me, show me their work, and talk about it.

Yesterday when I was on my walk, I was thinking about my Composition class. As much as I've tweaked and experimented, I've essentially kept the overall structure of my Composition class I learned in my PhD program at the University of New Mexico, the idea of major writing assignments scaffolded by low stakes assignments and, while I've changed the structure a lot, a final portfolio that involves revising and reflecting on the work from the semester. I realized something that is probably obvious to lots of folks- that when we start with change most of us start with changing within a known, comfortable, structure, but I imagine that many of us also come to a point where we realize that we need to get rid of the structure, clear the deck, and start over.

I started to think about what exactly the last year "told" me.

My students told me that the infographic/argumentative module, where they learn why we cite, how to research, use sources, would have been helpful if it'd been earlier in the course because that's stuff they'd use in all their other classes.

Some liked the themes (fairy tales, zombies), most did not. So I was thinking of things I think students should be exposed to. So I'm thinking of building mentor texts around that, and not theming.

• James Baldwin's "A Talk to Teachers"
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "The Purpose of Education"
• Ava DuVernay's 13th
• The lesson of Henrietta Lacks
• Sandra Cisneros excerpt "My Name" from The House on Mango Street
• Rosenwald Schools
• Rosenwald Schools: The National Trust
• Rosenwald Schools in NC
• Hawai'i and Colonization
• Look at the timeline for Hawai’i
• Overthrow of Hawai’ian monarchy
• background on Hawai’i
• Wilmington 1898:
• Zinn Education Project
• The Lost History of an American Coup D’État
• 'Wilmington's Lie' Author Traces The Rise Of White Supremacy In A Southern City

Our library has been closed for almost two years, and the English department does not have a dedicated writing lab so that has impacted how we design classes.

I like hearing from students on reflections, but the portfolios still feel chunky, don't do what I want, which is to get them to reflect, use revision.

My Advanced Composition class provided a lot of input on things that I need to move to Composition- they all really loved Murray's The Craft of Revision. They really appreciated How to Write Anything as a resource for them to use. How I taught citation.

Students like the choice of topic but want more models.

Students in general are surprised that there is not more focus on Black authors, Black history, given we're an HBCU.

So, I'm redesigning my Composition syllabus. I'll pilot these changes during my 5 week summer class, then continue next year. Here is what I'm going to do:

• I'm going to start class with a writing about writing, writing skills focus
• Not just asking what they think rules of writing are, what their past barriers and successes are, but focusing on skills
• Writing titles, thesis statements, including TAG
• Stealing idea about arguing for best movie using brackets to teach them about taking a stance and supporting it
• Teach why we cite, how to cite, different fields, different uses, how to find sources, evaluate them, interact with them
• Style guide on why language matters (many of my students learned a lot from this, said they'd never heard of ableist language)
• How to annotate
• How to ask questions
• Use Murray about how to revise, reflect 

We'll read and use some of the mentor texts above for these, so these won't be skills divorced from context, but will give them what they need to do well in their other classes all semester.

Next, instead of the type of final portfolio I've been using, I'm shifting to one that will look like a chart. In one column I'll put the skill, the next column they'll link to their best example of that, then the lst column will be their written reflection. The skills will be many of the ones we cover in the first module, then reinforce and practice throughout the semester. So the final "demonstrate knowledge" project would include:

• Provide an example of your best thesis that includes a TAG and shows a clear stance
• Provide an example of your best body paragraph that includes a clear topic sentence, textual evidence, correctly cited, and an explanation of how that textual evidence shows what you're arguing/analyzing in the topic sentence
• Provide an example of an annotated piece of writing from your field with questions
• Identify the rhetorical situation for one piece of writing AND explain how that rhetorical situation is shows in the writing
• Choose the piece of writing you're most proud of, write a reflection about your writing and revision process, what you learned, why you're most proud of it

I still think that teaching by genre helps students see that we write for different audiences, purposes, and in different ways, so I'll stick to them. Here our Composition covres Informative/Argumentative, Rhetorical Analysis in Composition I, Literary Analysis in Composition II, and Narrative writing.

For Composition I:

• For Informative/Argumentative, we'll cover these NC events, Black history, Black Past
• We'll cover what it says, what it means
• We'll talk about sources, how to summarize, how to quote, interact with
• We'll annotate and ask questions
• Their writing assignment will be to write a memo to their local school boards about why this should be taught 
• For Rhetorical Analysis, we'll watch 13th 
• We'll talk about identifying argument, supporting evidence
• We'll do double entry journals about describe --> analyze
• We'll read supplemental articles 
• For their writing assignment they can either write about 13th or any other documentary, analyzing the rhetoric, using support
• For Narrative I want to center them
• Start with Sara K. Ahmed's identity webs
• Collage of their experiences/culture/family: jargon, food, events, milestones
• For their writing assignment they can create a podcast, project, presentation, write an essay on their identity

For Composition II:

For Informative/Argumentative, they'll choose an issue in their community 

• They'll identify what community issue they want to write about
• They'll research problems and potential solutions including examples of those solutions in action
• We'll do a lot of the sources, research here
• I plan on using Evicted, and the accompanying website, to also teach them how to read and use graphics, infographics, charts, stats in their arguments 
• Their writing assignment will be to write a memo to local town/government/state rep in a white paper format
• For Literary Analysis, I'm not sure what short story mentor text I want to use. I like the New York Times "Op-Eds from the Future" but I don't know.
• I'd like to use a piece, that they annotate, ask questions of, then form a thesis, use a double entry journal for evidence
• I'd like to use a piece that I can find a scholarly article on, so they can "see" what that work looks like. They'll mimic the previous week- but instead of writing their own thesis and filling out a double entry journal they'd identify the argument and identify evidence that supports
• For their writing assignment they can either a close reading or thematic paper on our short story/poem or one of their choosing
• For Narrative I want to center identity
• I want to pick sample narratives that focus on identity, but I also think I want to push them to find these, choose ones/find ones, that they think show them, are models for them
• Then talk about what they want to accomplish
• For their writing assignment they will write a photo essay, creative non-fiction

Because I'm teaching face to face I'm going to set the week of writing assignments for 1 workshop day to work on writing, and 1 day for grade conferences, which worked well the one and a half semesters I was face to face.

I tried to consider what Composition needs to do- provide skills in a way students can transfer, to do well in their other classes. This meant putting my ego and interests aside and building a class that does this.

I like the choice in readings and products that students can do, so I'm keeping that.

For grades, I'm going to keep a lot of the flexibility of policies, grade conferences, no deadlines, focus on in class practice/learning work that is not graded, no attendance policies. But module's writing assignment and the final "demonstrate" portfolio will each be 25%. They can redo for higher grade based on feedback. As much as I want to go gradeless, in Composition classes, it's just pushing against too much indoctrination. I've thought long and hard about this, and I think the best thing is to build in the flexibility and focus on learning and feedback but I need to give these students something to build on, something known. Otherwise it seems from feedback, that too much focus gets put on the grades (or lack thereof) and not the skills and learning and work.

Even though this post is about Composition, I've run into similar issues with the combination of gradeless/final portfolios in upper level English classes. Students not meeting the bare minimum of assignment requirements (which in our class is what is needed to earn a C) arguing for As. Even with drafts, learning activities that they've received detailed feedback on, so have been told that's not where they are. 

As much as I love the idea of Unessays, it was a similar issue I had. Students turning in work that didn't or barely met minimum requirements arguing for an A. I'm still not sure how I can rebuild/restructure this so I get better final products. Honestly with the last year I haven't tried, I just don't have the bandwidth.

But on the flip side, I made the final assignment for Shakespeare flexible, they could choose a project, presentation, paper, any format, but they have to present during final exams, and honestly when they shared their ideas last week I was blown away by all the cool, personalized things they are doing. So maybe that's the answer? I don't know. I'll keep at it.

I don't want to argue with students about grades. I don't want to police things.

And I certainly realize that in a pandemic, on top of everything else this last year, a bag of salt is needed for anything I've observed. However, I've noticed that while students who are doing the work are gaining and learning a LOT from the detailed feedback, and I'm seeing AMAZING growth and work from them, no grades attached to these learning/practice assignments means that many are not doing it. So they're not getting the lessons, and I'm worried what that means for final/posted grades based on a final portfolio totally dependent on revising previous work from the semester.

So I think for the upper level classes I may do something similar as the Composition classes- keep the flexibility, the grade conferences, but one assignment per module, some type of final (like Shakespeare?) and each is 25%, so it's easier for them to "see" where they are.

I like a lot about being gradeless. But one thing student feedback has told me is that while many like the lack of pressure, for many it is anxiety producing, the not knowing, the focus on their own reflections. I certainly don't want to add to issues, uncertainty, especially if that distracts from the learning and content.

The Kind of Scholar I Want To Be

My department is revising the tenure and promotion deadlines for incoming positions so I've spent a lot of time thinking about and talking about what should earn tenure. I am at a small liberal arts college that is an HBCU so for our annual evaluations teaching counts for 60%, scholarship is 20%, and service (to department, university, community at large) is also 20%. The university has their "floor" policy (I have no clue why it is called this) that we as a department can go above but we can't go under. Because we're an English AND Digital Media department a lot of the discussion was about what for DM we needed to consider for the tenure requirements. We ended up including peer reviewed shorter pieces (articles, chapters) and monographs, creative works for our poets and writers, and digital media products, leaving it to the scholar to prove, explain their work. We added conferences and invited talks, although I've heard it said a couple times here that those don't count.

For teaching we did not make many changes, but we did compress/revise a long list to the more inclusive syllabus and course design and weight it more, since that included assignments, syllabus, etc.

For service, we didn't have a lot to change or add. Because we're a small school we all do a lot of service, and we're assigned department and university work so that's not really a piece we have to worry about not hitting. I'm on and chair our department General Education committee.  For the university I serve on the QEP committee, on the GE advisory board, the school curriculum committee, the academic advisory board, the teaching advisory board. Last year and this I served on hiring committees.

Last year and this I also have run pedagogy workshops which I've enjoyed. Last year I focused on serving students and accessibility. This year I focused on practical pedagogy. Next year I plan on focusing on writing across the curriculum and supporting other departments. I enjoy doing this. Last year I also did continuing education workshops for the community.

I am also the program coordinator for English, but that's a stipend, not an assigned service. As program coordinator though I do the curriculum revisions, organize events for students, advising and registration meetings, run the social media (Twitter and blog), and send list-serv updates to majors.

So I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a scholar, to be an assistant professor. Of what my life looks like here. This is only my second year, and the past year has been the pandemic. So I have really only experienced one semester of "normal" here. We only have two tenured faculty in our department, and most people have only been here a year or two longer than me so we're a relatively new/young department.

One of the first things I did last year when I started was to look at our tenure and promotion guidelines, both the university and departmental, and plan out the scholarship piece. I was not worried about doing well on the teaching or the service, and because with scholarship so much depends on editors, journals, and timelines and delays out of your control, I wanted to focus on that.

For the tenure and promotion guidelines *I* am under teaching is 60%, scholarship 20%, and service is 20% BUT you have to score 85% or above on each category. For scholarship you need to publish three peer reviewed pieces/articles or a book (yes, we've talked about how those are not the same). Some people in our department went up for tenure review instead of their third year review, one went up in the regular, 5th year. Our school lets people go up when they think they're ready, does not restrict by year, and if you don't get it your first time, you're allowed to go up again.

I had a couple of goals for my first years.

I decided not to apply to or go to conferences the first couple of years because I knew the learning curve would be steep learning my new position, and I wanted to build in time to get to know my students, the university, the department. So when the pandemic hit I did not have any conferences or travel to cancel. I've made the decision not to apply for this next year either. I can do this in part because my school allows me to. I'd like to make it a regular thing to take our students to SAMLA when it's held in state. I'd like to go back to present at PCA/ACA in the spring. I'm fine with not traveling a lot, not taking time away from teaching. 

I also wanted to focus on meeting my tenure publication requirements by my third year review so that I could cross that off my list and not worry about it. Last year I had a chapter in an edited collection on the presentation of the devil as a symbol of the culture wars The Passion of the Christ and The Last Temptation of  Christ in The Bible Onscreen in the New Millenium, ed. Wickham Clayton. This year/month I have a chapter on how Roman Catholicism presentations in horror films acts as popular culture/folklore of beliefs to non-Catholics in the roles of priests, the knowledge they have, and the rituals they perform in Theologyy and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination ed. Brandon R. Grafius and John W. Morehead. Next year (hopefully?) the edited collection I'm co-editing on nostalgia and horror and my chapter in it on older final girls will be published. So that's my three. And next year I submit my stuff for my third year review so I hope/think that's all okay.

My plan is that with the required number met I can turn back to rethinking my book, which I have mostly planned out and rethought through, but have not had a chance the last couple of years to really work on, although I think I have the heart of the first chapter redone (although another scholar read it and mostly trashed it as not fitting in the field, so maybe not).

I've written before that I write for me. My first publication was a co-written chapter for an edited collection in 2013. Whether it's these blog posts or articles or chapters I still write for me. I think part of that is because WHEN I first published, I was teaching high school, adjuncting for the local community college, and teaching online. A lot of my publications are just me writing about the things I think are cool. European horror video games, a couple of articles and chapters on Freddy Krueger, as a bogeyman and the practical aesthetics and effects in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game, an article on the folkloric forest in Twin Peaks, a New Mexican folk hero Elfego Baca. If there's a throughline in my work, and certainly how I describe it, is that I look at folkloric figures in popular culture and analyze how they're a reflection of their historical and cultural moment. This work is informed my background in pre-modern and early modern English literature. In this way my most recent chapter in Theology and Horror is an excellent example of this. It looks at exorcists and the Rite of Exorcism in The Exorcist, The Rite, and The Conjuring, framing the performance of Catholic rituals as a type of commonly understood folklore/belief even by non-Catholics, but it also provides the pre-modern and early modern context for exorcism, the history.

This approach, of applying the folkloric to popular culture while informed by the pre and early modern, of presenting this as a model for scholarship, is my contribution if I can call anything that.

Because I tend to write what I want, on whatever I feel like doing, and most importantly my job lets me, I know I'm never going to be a name in my field. I know (of) people who are rock stars in their fields. Big names. People who will CONTRIBUTE TO THE FIELD. Who will publish regularly in the big journals in their field. That is not me. I once submitted to a big name journal, they took over two years to get back to me then told me it was a ridiculous approach and I clearly had no idea what I was doing. I let another scholar read another article I was planning to submit to a journal and was asked if I was sending it to some experimental journal because it didn't follow any of the formulas it should have. My book based on my dissertation was rejected wholesale in a pretty cold manner by an editor who did a 180 from the enthusiasm and support they showed previously.

These things hurt at the time. They certainly fed into me thinking me being in this/these fields were not for me. I don't write the way other people do. I don't write ON topics other people do. I combine fields. I ignore periodization. I've made my peace with it, mostly because I am lucky enough to have a position that lets me. If for any reason I was to not be in this position any more I'd go back to high school teaching and be done with academia. It would just be one less thing I did honestly. 

But for now, I am happy writing and creating the way I do.

And honestly, it's still a total kick to see something I wrote in print. It's just silly and cool.

But the thing that seems totally rockstar cool is seeing other people cite what I wrote. The first time I saw my name in Google Scholar as a citation and not my own work, was a total gas. Surreal.

But do you know what's even better? Seeing up and coming scholars cite my work in their thesis, in their dissertation. Two such pieces popped up in my Google Scholar searches recently and I just wanted to share them. Brianna Reeves' MA thesis, The Evolution of the Satan Figure: From 14th Century Literature to 20th Century Popular Culture (2018) is very cool work. Kevin McGuiness' interdisciplinary dissertation on The Cinematic Boogeyman: The Folkloric Roots of the Slasher Villain (2019) is also some excellent work. And I'm not just saying that because they cite me. They do exactly the work I think is cool- collapsing the barriers between folklore and literature and popular culture. It's excellent work by itself, but also for the model it presents.

Also- look at this! In what world do I get cited in the same sentence as Zipes? Just wacky.

For me, other than being able to write and do what I want, the thing I hope I can be is generous. I want to support people, share my teahcing stuff, listen to people. Advocate for folks who are in more precarious positions than myself. Just like with my teaching, I could not care less honestly whether my students remember some arcane pre modern factoid or how to read Shakespeare's sonnets. I care that they learn ho to think, interact, discuss, argue, read, choose literature, express themselves. Be models for kindness, support, change. Those are the things I hope they carry out of my class. The idea that maybe there's a different way, and my favorite cliche, "they can contribute a verse."

For me the kind of scholar I want to be is the type of teacher I want to be. Generous. Kind. Operating outside of the box, the structure.

I don't know if my future is going to end up down a scholarly path. The world all feels a lot more precarious than it once did. But for now I guess I'll keep doing this. And see how it goes. Because the simple fact is, you have to live with yourself. You have to, no matter who you are, create a life you can live with. You have to treat people in a way you can live with. You may face consequences for this. You may have to fight for it. You may lose your privilege or position because of it.

But at the end of the day you have to build a life you can live WITH. Whatever that looks like.

So I do that. And in whatever small ways try to make it better than I found it.

Doodles

This week my students in Advanced Composition were reading and responding to Lynda Barry's Syllabus. Some really liked it. For some the drawings or freedom or sentiment spoke to them. Some found it confusing, difficult. Some had a hard time reading it, knowing how to deal with the information, or even understand what it was saying and doing.

One student said at the beginning of the semester when they picked up books that they knew  that the Murray Craft of Revision and Syllabus were both for my class without looking.

I have always doodled.

I used to doodle in textbooks, the margins of notebooks. I still doodle during meetings and conferences. It helps me focus. Sometimes it helps me keep my mouth shut. 

Not often.

I am NOT a good drawer. My doodles are stick figures. Laughable stick figures. But in my teaching I use them all the time.

For my high school freshmen I used to draw Tybalt on the bier, then erase him, leave the "Tybalt juice" (always lime green in my Expo markers) and draw Juliet on top of it, as part of a lesson in annotating and illustrating Juliet's fears in Act IV scene 3.

I draw a surprisingly accurate Globe Theatre. The students always laugh when I draw technical drawings because they're good (a holdover from drafting as a master electrician in technical theatre) but I always "ruin" them by then adding stick figures.

But I love doodles. 

It's just how my brain works. When I read plays or texts I annotated and highlight as I read, but then when I go through these to make my notes, either for discussion or to teach, I put them most often in visual form.

Here, as my Shakespeare seminar students held their discussion on The Tempest, I illustrated on the board as they talked.

Then, when we talked about a story from Sycroax's Daughters a couple of weeks later, since we were talking about it as an adaptation of The Tempest, I printed out my board notes and then mapped the story over it.

Then I replicated these notes on the board during class.

In my classes, both high school and college, I am a big fan of visual notes, getting students to doodle, draw, make these types of connections. Not all are fans. Not all create dense pages. Some put a couple of things and call it done. Others really run with it.

I like doing this for a few reasons. I think we don't play enough as a way of thinking through and expressing ideas. I like the idea of challenging my students to think of our material in different ways. Along with play, I think the idea of experimenting is important.

So I doodle in class. I doodle as board notes. I doodle as my notes. I encourage students to doodle.

When I taught high school I often had my students create one page visual notes to represent a module. I also would hand them Expo markers at the end of the year and let them go to town on the whiteboard, to draw out a representation of our semester or year. I've had my college classes create visual notes as module reflections, end of semester reflections. When I saw we're drawing with crayons in class or playing with blocks I mean it.

Whether or not doodles are involved my boards notes tend to be very visual. I change colors, there are shapes. I encourage students to take pictures of board notes and a lot do at the end of class.

I joked last week with a senior that they could publish a whole book of my doodles. So I was thinking of all my doodles. I generally have not saved them. I take pictures of board notes myself but never organize them or name them so they are easily found. It took me a while to find the ones shown below and I know I'm missing a bunch. I really wanted to find that Tybalt juice one because I taught Romeo and Juliet several times a year for YEARS and I did that drawing every time.

Alas.

I think I'll be better now about saving them, naming them.

But for now, I just thought I'd share.

https://www.screencast.com/t/50YfhnJE