tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post116382151646178166..comments2024-01-28T03:35:51.182-05:00Comments on Reassigned Time: Research in an Upper-Level ClassDr. Crazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-1164022668061817982006-11-20T06:37:00.000-05:002006-11-20T06:37:00.000-05:00Delurking to say thank you for articulating the pe...Delurking to say thank you for articulating the personality/intellect conflict so precisely. I think about this issue a lot, and like you, have a tendency to respond to my own strenghts and weaknesses when I see them in the students. <BR/><BR/>I don't think it is possible or desirable to detach completely from ones own experiences. I get a lot of positive feedback from my students because I remember (and admit that I remember) what it was like to be to be in their situation. I am very honest with them about my own experiences and use my experiences to push them forward, but I am afraid that i am more succesfull in doing this with the students who are closer to me personality-wise. I am afraid I do not "see" or pay enough attention to the students who are very different from me and that I do not see how to push them in the right direction or how to challenge them in the best way according to their particular personalities.<BR/><BR/>Your post made me think about this again.saxifragahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11350662136988602572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-1163944913070380912006-11-19T09:01:00.000-05:002006-11-19T09:01:00.000-05:00There's so much I want to respond to in this post....There's so much I want to respond to in this post... but I'll just pick up on the personality/intellect issue: I think this is a very common concern, especially for female academics. However, I've come to think about it this way: having a fabulous personality AND being an intellectual is a bit like learning another language-- you *know* you've learned a language when you can tell jokes in it. I've come to think I'm a "worthy" intellectual *because* I can have fun with it-- I'm fluent enough with the material that I can improvise and let my personality into it.Margarethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03047700345491098393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-1163906973474378802006-11-18T22:29:00.000-05:002006-11-18T22:29:00.000-05:00I don't think that it is contradictory to being an...I don't think that it is contradictory to being an English Professor to rank one book above all others: surely it is passion and taste which leads one to that profession, and could also lead one to have favourites? I qualify that last statement because I know from my own reading experience that it is very difficult to pick one book out of the many that I love and say it stands superior to all others in my affections. My own English Professor of the past two years, however, has been up to the task: I worked through Ulysses with him over the course of a year, and he was quite open in saying it is what he considers to be the most fantastic novel of the 20th century. His sheer joy in the text pervaded every class and added an extra dimension, one which was really helpful in getting what was going on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-1163887337129366502006-11-18T17:02:00.000-05:002006-11-18T17:02:00.000-05:00I think that training students to push past their ...I think that training students to push past their initial, first look and maybe visceral, reactions to books, films, TV shows, etc. isn't so much a matter of reigning in their passions as opening up new windows on the things that they love. I don't believe that passion and critical inquiry and analysis are at odds with each other, but are, ideally, mutually constitutive. I should add that it must just be a joy to have a student who appears to be so thoroughly engaged with the class. Particularly when teaching courses on film, I am constantly having to struggle with the disappointing reality that most of my students are relatively blase about a subject, and individual works, that I absolutely love. Many of these same students are also, in ways both passive and active, resistant to learning theory and methods for the critical analysis and interpretation of movies, and particularly do not enjoy films that challenge their ideas of what movies should be. The students who have been most open to new experiences and critical exploration are those that do have a passion for film.Shaun Hustonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05374693213232236154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-1163867218104280342006-11-18T11:26:00.000-05:002006-11-18T11:26:00.000-05:00Dr. C, I'm stuck on your description of the confli...Dr. C, I'm stuck on your description of the conflict between your personality and your intellect. Beautifully articulation of the problem--and one I don't think you're alone in. I've never described it that way to myself, but I think you've hit it right on the head. To that end, it might not be about stifling your student's passion as much as it is about coaching her on how to redirect it. How did you learn to do it?kfluffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09067013188119828400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-1163862761430575582006-11-18T10:12:00.000-05:002006-11-18T10:12:00.000-05:00After reading Gerry Graff's book, Clueless in Acad...After reading Gerry Graff's book, <I>Clueless in Academe</I>, last year, I started to think about what my students really know about academic writing. I think it is very little. Though some of that may be related to the institution (regional, comprehensive) and the students' background (primarily first-generation college), Graff's students were from University of Chicago-- certainly they are bright, dedicated students. So, I started to demonstrate how I would go about choosing my topic for writing. Now, in an ideal world, I would do what one of the faculty at my alma mater said he does every time he teaches-- produce a paper related to the topic every time he teaches (but he was teaching doctoral students!). Still, by taking a student's comment (e.g. "I find it interesting that...") and showing how one might develop that idea (read: passion) into a thesis for an academic paper, students found it very helpful. It helps them learn what to look for in the text (I call them the "knots"-- the problematic, pithy areas that need exploration) rather than just focus on their favorite parts. We put the idea on the board then use a variety of graphic organizers to pull at the knot strings to see where there might be paper topics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com