Experiments in Teaching Research Skills

For the first time in the upcoming semester, I will be assigning a group research project in a course. The course is an upper-level course that satisfies a general education requirement, and while I do have a number of majors in the course (hallelujah!) I also will have a range of students of varying ability levels and disciplines. Since the course is numbered at the junior level, I'm committed to including a research component, but from the beginning I decided that I wanted to experiment with a different kind of research assignment from the traditional research paper, particularly since this is not a course aimed solely at majors.

So, how to organize a research assignment from which all students will learn something and at which all students have the potential to succeed when the range of students in the course is so wide? Well, that was the task I set for myself, and what I came up with is this group project idea.

I know. Students hate group projects. But I think the beauty of what I've designed is that the bulk of the work is actually individual, and even the group portions won't require a great deal of meeting with one another - they could probably manage the project entirely electronically if they so chose to do so. The first portion, a group portion, requires each group member to read a brief theoretical text that I assign. (This is also a way to get them to grapple with theory, albeit in a small way.) As a group, they need to write a 250 word summary and a 250 word analysis that connects the theory to the unit to which their project corresponds. (I've offered to meet with the groups to discuss the theory stuff outside of class should they feel at sea with this portion of the assignment.) Then, each individual member is responsible for finding 3 secondary sources and providing an annotation for each, and then for finding 3 primary sources (literary texts of some stripe) that are not on the syllabus that could supplement the assigned texts for the unit with an explanation for how they fit into the unit's themes. Each individual member then needs to write an analysis of how the group worked together, what they learned from their individual part in the project, and what they learn from looking at the project as a whole. Finally, the last "group" part of the grade has to do with formatting and submission, so I'm going to receive just one document with all of the above included. Once I've graded each project (there will be four total), I will post them on the course blackboard site so that all students in the course can see what other groups have done, thus providing 4 supplementary packets of material for students who'd be interested in further reading on the topic of the course.

I suppose the reason I'm excited about this assignment is that 1) it forces them into the library and to read and think about sources (both secondary and primary) in a critical way; 2) it's not actually that much work for each individual, and the project assignment clearly assigns duties to individuals so that one person won't get stuck doing all of the work 3) it gives students the opportunity to hone research skills separately from the monumental task of writing a paper, which I really don't think we give students enough opportunity to do. (I will have them write an essay in which they will need to integrate two secondary critical sources, so they will do some research writing, but they will not do a full-blown research paper in the course, as I expect students to do in senior-level courses.)

Of course, the whole thing could go horribly awry, but my hope is that I've thought of the pitfalls and that students will ultimately find the experience of the project rewarding and that they'll learn something from it. So that's what I've spent my morning doing - trying to compose an assignment for the project that is incredibly clear and that closes all possible loopholes that will make the whole thing disastrous. Have any of you ever assigned a similar sort of project? If so, do you have any advice from your experiences? Also, from my above description, do you see any potential difficulties that I'm not anticipating?

Angst on the Horizon

Don't worry - I'm not done with posting about my trip (and I shall post some pics in the coming days) - but I thought I'd interrupt my regularly scheduled reports about my glamorous world-traveling with the mundane details of what's going on with me work-wise. To be honest, this evening, absolutely nothing is going on with me work-wise. And nothing has been going on with me work-wise since the early days of July, when I finished my conference paper and delivered it. Now, I know that this was the right thing to do. You know that you have a reputation of being a ridiculous workaholic (and may in fact be a ridiculous workaholic) when at an academic conference various people keep repeating that you "deserve" a vacation when you tell them about your upcoming travels. And I did deserve a break, and I took it. But now it is time to pay the piper. And oh, I shall pay dearly.

The major thing is final revisions on the book manuscript. There's work I need to get done on that in the next three weeks when I'm not teaching that I absolutely cannot put off until after the semester begins. I need solid time - time to explore big ideas and to flesh out difficult passages from one idea to the next. That's not the kind of work I can do easily in fits and starts. I know this about myself, and I accept it. I also know that over the past three spring breaks I've managed to force myself into that dedicated working time, with good results, and so I have faith that I can do so over the next three weeks as well. Well, or I'm trying to have faith that I can do that. So what do I need to do in the next three weeks for the book?

• Massive amounts of reading. I need to flesh out some sections of the manuscript and make connections to texts that I don't currently discuss. This sounds more gargantuan a task than it is, actually, but I don't want to underestimate the work that lies before me, so I'm erring on the side of overestimation.
• Once those massive amounts of reading are completed (with the taking of extensive notes as I go), I will complete revisions on the intro chapter, chapter two, chapter three, and the final chapter, weaving in bursts of new material and smoothing out the transitions from one idea to the other. These are the most substantive of the revisions that lie before me, and if I can get them done by the first week of classes, I will be GOLDEN.
• Talk to my editor about some logistical stuff related to the book.

The problem is, these aren't the only things I need to accomplish between now and the start of school. I also must:

• Complete revisions based on a reader's report for an essay I'm doing for a collection. These revisions are fairly (ok, totally) substantive. It's not that the reviewer hated my essay. It's that the reviewer sort of wanted me to write a totally different essay than the one that I wrote. And so now, well, I need to find a way to write a totally different essay from the one that I wrote while retaining the substance of the essay that I did write, while still maintaining a reasonable length. This, my friends, shall not be easy. I should add, however, that I think the essay will be better for all of this finagling.
  
• Complete syllabi. Now, I've got reassigned time (yet again, so thank you, talisman of my blog name), so I have but three classes to teach in the fall. Three preps. Three syllabi that are not yet ready. I want to die.
• Unpack my office. Remember how I had the office recarpeted and had to pack up the whole thing? Yeah, I never unpacked. I feel that this may be something that does not get done before the end of Fall semester.

You may also be wondering whether I plan to have a personal life during the insanity that is the next month or two. (I won't list off all the things that will happen after Sept. 1, as that would be too overwhelming and depressing to list right at this juncture.) Well, remember that Fake Boyfriend of mine? He's still around, though I'm not sure in what capacity. On the one hand, a fake boyfriend is perfect for my current circumstances. I mean, the fake boyfriends, they really are quite convenient. None of the angst that comes with real boyfriends, and not as much of a time commitment. That said, do I want to have a long-term fake relationship? (This has already been going on for 3-ish months.) That seems supremely stupid. I fear that FB and I will have to enter the real in some fashion sooner rather than later, as I'm not a supremely stupid person. Either that or we'll need to scale the whole thing back to a friend thing (which would be disappointing, I'll admit, and yet I'd survive, as would my friendship with the FB). Deciding about these things is complicated by the FB's situation as well (and FB, I am not being passive-aggressive here, just descriptive, so no, there will not be a need to call me out on the passive-aggressive blog-posting, nor is there a need for you to think about anything related to me other than that I am in your world and that the fact that I am in your world and you're in mine is a positive thing and whatever will be will be, and sooner or later we'll talk about it and figure it out, etc.) and so who knows on the FB score. Otherwise? Shit, I've got too much work to do to think about adding to the personal life in any brand new thing sort of fashion, so unless something current materializes or unless I have some sort of a blast from the past thing enter, I'll be going to a great many movies and meals with BFF and doing some colleague-type socializing and perhaps shall hang with Naomi a bit and that will be that through the end of the year. For, you see, after MLA (and after the book is delivered, which is right before), my plan is to do absolutely nothing research-wise for approximately 6 months. That will be the time for new things, should I need new things to transpire.

But then there's the possibility that I'll send out some job stuff this year. If there's anything good, I certainly will. I'm not yet willing to commit to where I am, so if there's anything appetizing, I shall apply, in spite of the fact that I have no time and no energy for such ventures. Ah well. A girl only lives once. And I'm a girl who believes in pursuing possibilities, even if they don't pan out. One learns from the pursuit, if nothing else. (This philosophy of life is probably why I'm not married, it occurs to me.)

So yes, all of this is what shall produce angst in the coming weeks and months. I know you care terribly, but it does help to write it all out, and to write it all out for an audience as opposed to for myself in the journal, in which I have the pesky tendency to devolve into unadulterated whining (and if you think this here is whining, you have absolutely no idea.)

And now, since you have read through all of this ruminating, I shall reward you with a picture from my trip. This was taken in Wales, and tragically I don't think you really see the gorgeous shafts of light that were coming out of the sky onto the view below. That said, I am in love with Wales. Yes, in love with the whole place. In a way that I have never been in love with a place in my life, and no, not even in the way that I am in love with Italy. It is so beautiful and lovely that I don't know why we all don't live there. Seriously.

Sleepy Morning

It doesn't help that your cat likes to wake you up at 4 AM but then he decides it's time to settle down for a snooze right when you actually need to get up and showered and moving, but so there it is. At any rate, I'm pleased to report that after my post last night I went through the chapter I'd needed to look at (which is really quite good, if I do say so myself) and made some changes. Once I've completed a once-over of all chapters I'll need to look at the manuscript as a whole, when I suspect I may still change a few things, but whatever. I'm on my way, and I'm excited to look at the next chapter. I also cleaned out my bag and organized all of my stuff that I need to grade/record. I'm hopeful that I will actually grade/record all of this in the next hour and a half, but I probably am lying to myself.

So let me apologize for something right now. I'm going to use this blog as a space where I report my activities in the next few weeks, and I know it's boring. But it helps me to feel positive and to keep accomplishing more things if I actually write down what I'm getting done, and somehow putting it on the blog works better for that than putting it in my journal. I know I've said I don't use the blog as an accountability thing - and generally I don't - but with as much on my plate as I've got now, I think that doing a little of that will be a good thing. I've even been thinking about putting one of those counter graph things in the sidebar, but that's probably going too far.

A couple of things that have been bugging me. 1) I haven't heard a peep from that place where I did the campus visit. 2) I also haven't heard a peep from my diss adviser and a number of other people that I told about the book contract. What's with people? As for the job people, it's totally cool if I'm not the first (or second or third) choice, but isn't it rude not to congratulate me? As for the adviser, well, this is our relationship, and this is probably what has motivated me to get a book contract in the first place - trying to make him responsive and interested in me, which he is not - and as for the other correspondents, well, I think that there's just some kind of weird sucky sour grapes thing going on, and that really blows. I hate people. And I can't even begin to describe the range of reactions in my department. Some people didn't speak to me for a week. No, I'm not kidding.

Ok, so done with that bitching for the moment. Must get my overbooked day underway. Also, a question: do I really have to shave my legs if I have a doctor appointment this afternoon? I feel like I do, but then I also feel like it's winter and I'm in the dryest of dry spells and shaving one's legs is a pain in the ass and why do I have to do that for the doctor? I already decided that if it's happening it's happening right before the doctor - not during the morning shower, where I was groggy with the sleepiness - so feel free to weigh in.

Feeling Energized on Monday? Who Knew It Was Possible?

Well. This weekend I did NOTHING. I did not grade, I did not read (for work), I did not prep, I did not write. I did not allow myself to feel guilty over not doing the above, but rather I reveled in laziness. I took a calculated risk (re: being the Laziest Crazy Alive) in order to gear up for what promises to be a wicked month of work on all fronts. And you know what?

I feel great this morning. Rested. Relaxed. Ready to go. The one thing I did do was make a little to-do list last night (and to realize that I've tragically overbooked myself for tomorrow). So now it's time to hit the ground running. One thing I do have to say, though, is that I'm kind of ticked off that I watched the Oscars in its entirety last night. It was so. so. boring. So many read speaches. The interpretive dance interludes were just dumb. And nobody was wicked excited in the manner of Three Six Mafia. And why did Kirstin Dunst's dress have a collar? And why does my boyfriend Phillip Seymour Hoffman look like a homeless person, always? And does he own know formal shirts that aren't black? Because really - it's time to change up the shirt beneath the formal suit and to stop wearing electric blue ties. And to buy a comb. Yes, PSF, you are still my boyfriend, but even my patience with your slatternly appearance is wearing thin.

Other than that, hmmm.... not sure what else to write. I need to get myself dressed and ready to go teach, but I'm procrastinating about that just a wee bit. My plan for the day is to go teach my class and then to flee the premises immediately so as to get a good afternoon of work done. On the agenda today is to:

1) polish one chapter of the manuscript (in the form of rephrasing jargon-laden grad-school prose, eliminating ridiculous and unnecessary notes, etc.)
2) read two chapters of the book I'm doing a review-ish piece for.
3) catch up on grading in one of my classes.
4) clean out my bookbag (which tragically I did not accomplish this weekend.
5) go to the gym (for the first time in AGES)
6) go to the grocery store for supplies (i.e., diet black cherry vanilla coke)

It's a lot, but I think it's manageable. Especially after the sloth of the past three days.

And by the way? I really make a delicious meatloaf, but nobody - and I mean nobody - needs to eat meatloaf every two hours in a crazy gluttonous celebration of it. No, not even me. (Have decided not to worry about eating in a low-cal way for the next month - with the stipulation being that I must cook the delicious things I eat from scratch rather than relying on processed foods. Something has to give somewhere, and I really don't think it's possible to focus on diet when one has all of the stuff to focus on that I've really got to focus on right now.)

Ok, on that note, I've got to get myself together and get my relaxed ass to school.

Friday - Ugh

I realize we're all supposed to be happy in an "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" way on Fridays, but does anybody else have the thing that I have where by Friday they're so pooped that they barely want to get out of bed, let alone to go and teach a class and then to meet with a student about the prospect of grad school (initiated by the student, I may add, as in spite of my campaign against grad school, the patsies just keep on coming)?

In other news, this will be my last weekend of freedom, for between now and the end of March I need to:

1) Write a short reviewish type article.
2) Complete manuscript polishing and send it away to publisher.

Ok, that's only two things. But see, the thing is, I'm thinking about what I need to do after that, too:
1) Read a novel I've not read before but which apparently I will be presenting on in a few months' time.
2) Write two conference papers.
3) Finish the semester.

Oh, and above I shoud mention that I'll also be getting papers and midterms in that will need to be graded, and I'm teaching a bunch of stuff that I'm not super familiar with over the next month or two.

What is wrong with me? Why do I do this to myself? Why am I making myself late for school by whining?

Maybe Better Than a Job Offer

I've been offered a contract for my book.

The Only Good Is Knowledge...

And the only evil ignorance.


This, folks, was what my fortune had to tell me this evening, as I gorged myself on Chinese food in an effort to try to make myself feel better and to find some meaning in my stupid life. And you know what I thought as soon as I read that there fortune? "No shit, Sherlock." And who's even said that past the age of 12? But yes, that was my response. Because my whole problem right now is that I'm ignorant about some things that I need to know about, and there's not one thing that I can do other than to wait around until somebody decides to enlighten me. And that, my friends, is why it's really not good to be me.

That and the fact that I slipped and fell on some ice this morning as I tried to walk across campus to my class.

And the fact that it's probably not good that I've been holed up in my house waiting to become un-ignorant through two snow days.

And that I've not been getting anything done during this waiting to become un-ignorant, unless one counts playing Civilization IV constantly as "getting something done."

I mean, I suppose one could say that I'm getting a great deal done, in that I'm founding and developing whole civilizations, but as this is imaginary, it probably doesn't count.

But so yes. It's hard to wait. Even after months of waiting. And I'm not a patient person, and I'm not interesting when I'm waiting around for things that are out of my control. And so this, folks, is the reason why I've been so quiet. I'm giving myself until tomorrow to wallow, and then I've got to move on. Not that anything necessarily will be different tomorrow, but I just can't go on in this holding pattern. No, I need to get back to eating like a rational person, I need to get my ass to the gym, and I need to focus on other things aside from this stupid predicament in which I've put myself. God, why couldn't I just be content with what I've got instead of putting myself in a position where I'd have to wonder what the future would hold? I hate wondering what the future holds. I like routine, stability. Why am I always forgetting that?

Friday Morning

Ugh. I'm in the mood to write this morning, but I don't really have any material, if that makes any sense. I'm just exhausted from the week, I'm procrastinating about grading some quizzes that I've got to return this morning, and I'm feeling both disgruntled and stressed out.

Disgruntlement (and no, I'm not sure if that's actually a word)
I think that going on the market this year has made me a disgruntled employee. Not that I thought my job was all sunshine and roses before I did this, but going on the market, with the way that it requires you to get excited about other jobs in order to perform well, has kind of forced me to pick some nits related to my current situation. I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing, as in the long run, I think it's good if I stay here not to be mystified about exactly what this place is. That said, I fear that I'm expressing more disgruntlement than is wise because deep down I'm allowing myself to believe that I'm going to get another job, which is a really fucked up thing to allow myself to believe, even though believing that really is probably necessary to doing well at this final stage of the game. I won't get into all of the reasons why I'm disgruntled with my current job, but suffice it to say that I feel like any institution of higher education that uses the words "revenue neutral" and tries to pretend that those words don't mean "hey faculty, you realize that you're getting fucked over, right?" is a pretty sinister place. Oh, and in doing my taxes I allowed myself to realize that I'm actually earning LESS money now (even with my shitty raises) because of the huge increases that my institution has instituted in things like parking fees and insurance. Which makes me pretty disgruntled, you know?

Stressed Out
There is one particular thing that is generating a lot of stress, which is resulting in weird dreams that freak me out and some major exhaustion. The thing that is generating a lot of stress will happen very soon, and it will involve:

a. travel (which I hate)
b. teaching a class to a bunch of students whom I don't know
c. giving a talk to a bunch of colleagues I don't really know
d. meeting with various administrators
e. leaving my cat for 3 days
f. wearing a suit
g. having to be charming for three days
h. did I mention that I hate traveling? And that I particularly hate it when I have to be at the airport at 5 AM?
i. convincing myself that I really do understand the text that I will teach, even though it's not in my period or genre of specialization.
j. convincing myself that I'm not a total fraud as a scholar.
k. trusting somebody to care for the Man-Kitty, and I really don't like that at ALL.

The only things about the above situation that are not stressing me out are the fact that I've figured out what I'm doing to cover my classes when the above happens and that ultimately it doesn't really matter what happens because I do have a job. Except of course I'll be devastated if I make it this far and then can't close the deal, but I'm trying not to let that kind of negativity color my thinking.

I am also stressed out because while all of the angst of the above is preoccupying me, I've also got to deal with the following:

• a review essay that is due in one month's time for a friend's book
• wondering whether that editor will actually be interested in publishing my monograph
• activities related to the not one but TWO searches that my department is running at the moment
• grading approximately 60 papers over the next week
• conference week with students in my writing class
• revealing that I no longer want to do the quasi-admin position to the person who's the director of the program to which my quasi-admin position relates.
  
• review proposals for my MLA panel (the deadline is 3/1 or 3/10 - I sent out two calls because the CFP list has been totally lame lately and I thought they just weren't going to send my first CFP, so then I sent another one because it had been three weeks since I submitted the first one, and then both of them came out within a week of each other. Note to CFP administrators: you really need to get your crap together so that doesn't happen.)
• wonder whether I really have an interest in doing a collection out of the panel, and if so, wonder who would co-edit with me, because I really don't want to take on such a project on my own, I don't think.
• read many novels that I've not read/taught for two years or more.
• I don't even know what else.

So yeah. That's everything that's going on with me. I am disgruntled and stressed out. Not unhappy, just not exactly... relaxed. I can't wait until some of these things are no longer in play. I can't wait until summer.

On Being Challenged

Ok, so yesterday I said I wanted to write a post responding to the posts to which I linked (and I'm not doing it again because I'm lazy), but somehow I couldn't organize my thoughts enough in order to write anything that made sense. To summarize what other people said, Aspazia began the conversation by talking about the ways in which younger female faculty are challenged - quite literally, by students and by colleagues - in ways that male faculty don't face, and while many women said the equivalent of, "Sing it to me, Sister!" others responded with, "Hey, I'm oppressed, too! What do you mean women have it rough?" or "While it is true that women have it rough, I too have it rough even though I look like I'm part of a group that doesn't." (For a great recap of the discussion, check out this post over at Blogher.)

Now, I feel like I've posted about this issue before - maybe on this blog or maybe on my previous blog - I don't know. But there ARE very real ways in which younger female faculty are "challenged" beyond their male counterparts. While it's true that all faculty members face challenges, students are, in my experience, much more likely to back down in the face of a male prof's authority. Or, conversely, students are much less likely to dismiss a male prof's authority if the male prof exhibits some flexibility or is, I don't know, nice or kind to students. I think that this is fairly standard stuff. But the reason that I want to write about it again (because how could I not have written about this even though a quick search makes it seem like I haven't?) is because I hate the way that discussions like this often end up being about measuring pain or oppression or victimization by the cold, hard world that is the academy or whatever.

This is not to say that this profession doesn't have many victims. Not at all. But I hate it when a discussion about equity in one specific area is perverted into a discussion about the ways in which people from other identity categories have it bad, too, which then serves to invalidate or to obscure the original discussion. This happens all the time in discussions in my discipline specifically because of the horrible job market. Everybody has a tale of woe, and so it's very difficult to separate out anything from that. It's very easy to dismiss this kind of discussion because there's always a counter: "But what about adjuncts? They have it worse than you, oh woman on the tenure-track. Or what about women of color? How can you, white girl who's had it so easy, claim to have problems? Or what about people who are younger/older, gay, who have to care for children or elderly parents or who are married and can't live with their significant others- " blah blah fucking blah.

I'm not trying to dismiss the experiences of those groups (in spite of the blah blah fucking blah above) but at the same time, when the discussion takes this turn, it basically stops all discussions cold. So I think there's value in limiting the discussion, if only because I'm much more interested in trying to come up with strategies for change rather than in measuring pain or difficulty or whatever it is we're measuring when we start comparing one group's (or person's) experience to another's.

Ok, so now that I've gotten that off my chest, what do I think about the issue at hand - the unique challenges that women faculty face when they're on the tenure track?

First, I'd say that while the challenges themselves are not necessarily unique (difficult students, challenges to authority, issues with evaluations, being sucked into more service than perhaps is appropriate), the ways in which women must face these challenges and attempt to handle them are. And if we're going to have this conversation, we've also (I think) got to discuss the way that discipline and/or subspecialty within a discipline factors into these issues.

As I see it, the circumstances that affect me (and I'm only going to talk about me here, as I know most about my experiences in this context) in dealing with life on the tenure-track are as follows:

English, as a discipline, is perceived as being sort of warm and fuzzy, and students often think that there is no "objective" measure of merit.
This comes into play particularly in classes that are for non-majors, whether we're talking about writing classes or classes or literature classes that fill general education requirements, the "service" classes of my discipline. Whereas students who enter a math or science class accept that there are "right" answers, students who enter an English class often think that their "experience" of a text or their "interpretation" of an assignment trumps everything else. Thus, if a faculty member (male or female) doesn't set up clear expectations, he or she will be in for trouble. That said, what counts as "clarity" is gendered in our culture. Students will often expect a female faculty member to provide step-by-step instructions in a way that they do not expect male faculty members to do. If one compares syllabi or assignments between male and female faculty members, one can often see this difference manifested. I have male colleagues whose syllabi are incredibly brief, whose assignments consist of a prompt and little else. Students do not give them low evaluations for clarity nor do they give them low evaluations for preparation of material. Moreover, students seem to accept that if they need further clarification that it is their responsibility to seek it from the male faculty member. In contrast, students may receive mountains of paper explaining things from female faculty members, but nevertheless, they will complain that the expectations were not "clear." One might argue that the mountains of paper in fact obscure clarity. But if the female faculty member does not provide those, then she has no recourse when the student does not meet the expectation and then challenges her policies. It's a catch-22.

Moreover, in these classes a lot of what we're teaching is that one's opinion, if it is not rooted in the text, does not have authority. This goes against what students seem to learn throughout their K-12 education and what students see in popular culture about how to evaluate texts (think Oprah's book club). And so students will often enter, say, my intro to lit course with the attitude that all opinions about a literary text count equally, and that they are as equipped to judge a text's merit as somebody, say, with a PhD. They enter my male colleague's classes with the same attitude. That said, some students think that because I'm a woman I do not have the authority to challenge them in the classroom. They perceive any challenges that I do make to their claims as without authority and as without foundation because of expectations that they have about me based on gender. For this reason, I've learned to consider gender as I approach challenging my students about their ideas, to conform to certain kinds of gender expectations even as I challenge them.

Area of specialization does make a difference.
I do notice a distinct difference between how students in general education type classes respond to me and in how my upper-level students respond to me, and I don't think that this is purely based on the fact that the students are more mature. I think that subject matter plays a key role in my ability to exude and to exert authority in my classes. The upper level courses that I teach are in my field of specialization, which is a somewhat "masculine" (read: difficult) field. It is very difficult to reduce one's readings of these texts to "identifying" with one character or another or to any sort of personal satisfaction that one might feel at the end of a reading assignment. (In fact, there is often no sense of satisfaction provided by the narratives of things that I teach, which students often find frustrating.) Because the texts tend to be so seemingly impenetrable, students characterize me as "the subject who knows" in my upper level courses, and they are much more willing to accept my authority in other areas because of that. In contrast, in most of my lower-level classes (with one exception), in which I often teach more accessible texts, students are much less likely to grant me the same kind of authority.

Department and local culture is also a factor.
While it is true that English is a feminized discipline and that there are generally more female than male professors in most departments, all of my department leadership (and most of the tenured professors, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, all of the full professors in the department) are male. This sends a message to students that women are kind of subordinate professors, helper professors, who don't really count. Moreover, this area is very conservative, so most students (male and female) themselves embody very traditional gender roles and have very traditional expectations for how women and men should behave and what kinds of roles that women and men should play. This means that they respond to me in certain ways that I don't think students in other localities or at other universities would.

So how have I dealt with all of this?
Well, part of how I've dealt with it, which may seem counterintuitive, is to relax a little bit about the authority stuff. I run my class the way I run it - take it or leave it - and I don't worry so much anymore about keeping up an authoritative front. If students are going to respond to me as a woman first - let them - I just need to make sure that they realize that it won't make one bit of difference in terms of how well or poorly they do in my courses. The second thing is that I nip all challenges to my classroom administration in the bud. Immediately. In class. If a student shows up late, I call them out on it right then - I don't keep them after class and gently mention it to them so as to keep their pride intact. If students are talking while I'm presenting material, I stop, and I stare at them until they shut up. After the first two weeks, these things stop happening. I also am very vocal about issues I face in my classroom with my higher-ups, which I think helps in that I get their support from the get-go and if things come up later, they are less likely to affect how my higher-ups perceive me.

There are other things, but this post is going on too long and I need to stop blogging and start my day. I suppose the ultimate point, however, is that dealing with this crap is an ongoing process. I think (or hope) that things will improve once I get tenure, once I look a little older, or once I get a wedding ring on my finger (for with that ring - and with children - does come a certain kind of authority that I do not have, at least at this institution). The thing for me, though, is not to get bogged down in thinking about these issues, because doing so drives one crazy. And that has gotten easier, especially as I've taught so much in the past three years that I've got prep down to a science and running a class is like riding a bike. (In some ways I think that this is the biggest benefit of the 4/4 - much less time to agonize about abstract things like "authority" or to worry about preparation or overpreparation.)

So I hope this post contributes positively to the ongoing discussion. Though I really do apologize for how long the thing is - I didn't think I had so much to say!

Research at a Teaching Institution

Last night I did this post about research, and then this morning, when I woke up, I decided to take it down. I rarely do that - even when I probably should - just because I feel like, what the hell, that was what I wanted to write at the time and I've got to own whatever it is that I wrote, even if I feel like I don't like it now. But I chose to take that post down because I felt like it was weirdly apologetic and yet also disingenuously modest and yet also not really true. And also really long-winded and without a point.

But so throughout today I've been thinking that I wanted to do a post that actually does talk about research in a real way, and specifically about my experience as a person who does research at the kind of institution at which I teach.

First, I should say that since I realized I enjoyed teaching and that I had a talent for it, teaching and research have never been in competition for me. For me, each contributes positively to the other, and that's not just a schtick I've worked up for cover letters and performance review purposes. I really do believe that I'm stronger as a researcher when I'm devoted to my teaching and that I'm stronger as a teacher when I'm devoted to my research. That's just the way I roll.

I know that not everyone has that experience - some feel like teaching takes them away from their research and still others resent the demands that research makes upon them that stop them from focusing on what they do in the classroom. I don't fall into either of those camps, not really. Sure, I resent having to teach writing as much as I have to teach writing. Part of that is because I don't really believe it's where I'm strongest as a teacher, and I get frustrated when I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, spending great amounts of time on something that I'm not really very good at and not likely to get better at doing. I often feel in the writing classroom that I've got to lower my expectations for what I can achieve with my students, whether for my own sanity or whether to accommodate the students themselves, and I really hate feeling that. But this has a lot to do with the unique configuration of writing requirements at my institution. I'm not sure that I would feel the same about this part of my job in another context, and how I feel about this part of my job does not extend to a feeling about teaching generally.

But I didn't get into this gig to be "just" a teacher. If I had wanted to be "just" a teacher, I would have gotten secondary certification and taught high school. The attraction for me to being a professor - not "just" a teacher - was really deeply connected to my love of research. Now, I'm not the best researcher in the world. I'm not setting the world on fire, and I really don't think I'm that wildly productive. I pursue questions that are interesting to me, and I do so in a methodical way, and then things happen because of that. I don't say no to opportunities that cross my path. But I don't devote time each day (or even each week) to research, and I don't spend my summers writing like a maniac. If I've got a particular project, with a deadline, I do the research stuff. I devise projects because I'm interested in thinking about certain things - if I didn't have an idea that I wanted to pursue, I probably wouldn't have projects just to have them or because I felt obligated to do so, particularly in my current job. It's just not necessary to do that here.

But since it's not necessary to do research (beyond one article and attending some conferences) at my institution, that leads to some questions. One question that many people ask me (astonished) is how I've managed to be active in my research given the things that ARE required at my job (MUCH service, MUCH teaching). Another question is why I do it, given the fact that the deck is in some ways stacked against me.

But so first. How have I "managed"? I think part of it comes down to personality. I think I'm actually more likely to do research when I've got to squeeze it into limited blocks of time. I feel less pressured about it (which may seem contradictory, but for me that's because I don't feel like I've got to do something "good" but rather that I've just got to get the task completed, which is kind of liberating) and I don't get bogged down in minutiae as much. I also think I've been very good at being efficient with the projects that I take on, so that I'm not doing three radically different projects at once that are also radically different from anything I teach but rather that all of my various projects are intertwined, so reading one article "counts" for like 4 different things. Finally, I've managed because I've made it a priority to do so. I care about research, and I feel like I'm losing something if I don't do it. Some people feel that as well, but because they are so overwhelmed they just come to resent their job or to give up on trying. My response is rather to make sure that I find a way to keep this part of my intellectual and professorial life alive, whatever else I'm doing.

So yes, maybe I'm uniquely suited to being doing research while working at an institution at which research isn't terribly important. And maybe I've developed habits that contribute to my success with keeping active in research. BUT - and this is a big but - it's not all down to me. Most of the time, things end up falling into my lap. I don't have some big agenda that I devise strategically about what I will produce in a given year, and really the only research goal I've ever had is to get my damned manuscript into shape and get it published as a book. Otherwise? I'm pretty relaxed in my "plans" (if you can call them that). I think that's probably a good thing, as it means I don't beat myself up when something falls through or when something doesn't happen. Since it wasn't a goal, it's not a failure. Also, I've been lucky to have really great mentors who've sent projects my way, and I've been lucky to fall into working on something that seems to be becoming kind of "hot." (Well, not hot-hot, but not cooling off, if that makes sense.) And I got really good advice about how to market the work that I do, and so I have been steadily developing a higher profile in a very specific subspecialty.

As for why I continue, well, I really resent being told that the research I'm doing isn't important. I know that's not what my colleagues mean when they tell me that I can cut back, but that's the message that I get. I really believe in what I'm working on, even if it's not that important to most people. I really like the idea that something that I could write might make somebody read a text in a different way. And, hell, I just like to write. I enjoy it. But there is also this: I think that I need to do this kind of work in order to be content in the other kinds of work that my job requires. And no, I'm not at some fancy research institution, so I shouldn't have to do as much research as somebody there might (and I don't) and I don't actually aim to be at that kind of institution. What matters to me, though, is that people respect my intellectual life. When colleagues say to me that I should cut back on research, it feels like just another version of some members of my family deriding me for not getting a "practical" degree. Maybe what I'm doing isn't essential to anybody but me, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important.

So the battle, at an institution like mine, is a battle to keep one's intellectual life even when that's not what is most essential to the running of the institution. I imagine the opposite is true for people at research universities - that they must battle to keep teaching a priority. And it's not impossible, but it is challenging - and at least in my experience, the greatest challenge is not in carving out time to do that but rather in carving out the mental and emotional space to do it.

The likelihood is that more people teach in institutions like mine than in institutions like the one where I got my PhD. And getting a PhD at that kind of institution does not prepare you for the challenges of doing research at this kind of place. Sure, they warn you about needing to say no to things and about carving out time for your research, but they don't warn you that you'll also need to find a way to believe in how important your research is when those around you don't really care one way or another. They, I think, probably don't know to warn you about that because it's incomprehensible to them that other people with PhDs would have that kind of an attitude. So, my time on the tenure-track has been an education, in that regard. And if I stay here, I need to gear up for continuing to fight this fight, because I really do think that it's important. And if I go? Well, I'll cross that bridge when (or if) I come to it.

"You know, if you're feeling overwhelmed..."

Ok, so recently I sent out a call for papers for a panel I'm organizing for next year's MLA. Ho hum, tra la, I'm excited about the panel but come on - I won't really need to think about it until like March 15 because seriously, nobody's going to utter a peep about it until the deadline hits or it passes, right?

But then this morning I got an email from an editor at a real actual academic press (and not one of those con-artisty ones that asks you to pay for the printing costs and such) who apparently saw the CFP and who wanted to know whether I'd thought about expanding it into an essay collection.

Ok, so I had thought about it in the way that you think about things that you don't let yourself think about. It occurred to me when I came up with the idea for the panel, but then I immediately pushed it from my mind because a) I'm on the job market b) I'm shopping the proposal for my monograph c) I'm teaching 3 classes, doing the quasi-admin position, and doing enough service to kill a mule. In other words, I've got enough on my plate without heaping an editing project on top of it.

But of course, when you get an email from a non-con-artist editor inviting you to submit a proposal for a collection, and when you're Dr. Crazy and you'll do almost anything when you feel flattered, well, the collection that you weren't even going to think about all of a sudden becomes a thing that you're obviously going to do.

You may be interested to note that I met with a senior colleague recently, and in that meeting he said, "You know, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you could cut back on research."

I so hope that I get another job offer. Because clearly I do not belong in my current job, given my interest in juggling multiple research projects and their interest in telling me that my research is the first thing that should go if I'm feeling overwhelmed.

(I should note that the things that make me feel overwhelmed tend to be teaching and service. Note that nobody tells me to cut back on either of those.)

Some Thoughts about Teaching

Last night, I read this post, and it got me thinking. Manorama writes about her teaching experience and the choices that she makes for evaluating students. This is a follow-up post to some that she'd written at the end of last semester about the time it takes her to evaluate students for participation. Now, I responded to those posts, as did some others, but I think that she felt like those who responding weren't acknowledging her authority to make decisions about pedagogy in her classes, even though I'll at least say for my part that I didn't think I was doing that at all but rather that I thought I was giving advice that might be of use and trying to be supportive.

Anyway, in her most recent post, Manorama writes about why she chooses to invest as much in evaluating participation as she does. It's an interesting post, and worth checking out. That said, it's kind of long, and so my post here is really only responding to one line of argument that has been on my mind since I read the post last night.

Manorama writes,

"Coming up with a way to run a class where so many concerns are addressed is difficult, and it takes a special amount of effort to teach in a way that is consistent with my values as a scholar. That is, I will not sacrifice careful attention to history and literary criticism. I will not sacrifice the student leadership over the class because the critical thinking process I want them to practice requires them to be active leaders and discussants, not passive minds who aren't thinking, talking, listening, and writing in response to the text and to others. [. . .] If this is the kind of class I design, you can imagine why I would find it dishonest and unfair to pretend that I remember who "participated" and who didn't."

In this passage (if you want to see the entire paragraph please head on over to her post), the argument seems to be an ethical one, i.e., that those who do not take an approach to participation that details each and every student contribution sacrifice rigor in their courses and that they fail to give students ownership over the class - they fail to be "learner-centered" to use the jargon of the day. Moreover, those who do not demonstrate value through this kind of approach to grading may be accused of dishonesty and lack of fairness in their courses. One's choices become evidence of one's values, and, it is implied, that those who make different choices do not share Manorama's scholarly values.

This argument doesn't really work for me. First, I'm not sure that every single composition or literature course needs to or benefits from emphasizing history and literary criticism, even if one values those things. At least in my experience, with the kind of students whom I teach, I have found that all classes can't necessarily do that work in a way that is effective. Moreover, I think that there is something of value in emphasizing in my lower level courses students' own reading practices and translating those into solid writing. Now, I do not teach at a research university, and many of my students come into my courses having very limited backgrounds with academic analysis, reading, and writing. I usually have at least one student a semester who claims never to have read an entire book. What that means is that I need to lay a kind of foundation for my students in lower level courses that I did not have to lay at my grad institution. This does not mean that I don't value literary critical and historical context, but it does mean that I know that I get multiple bites at the apple. If a student has me in one class, it's not terribly unlikely that I'll never see that student again. In fact, it is often quite likely that I will have a student whom I've had for freshmen writing at least once if not twice or three times more before they graduate. Thus, I think that what I value as a scholar in that regard does have a link to what goes on in my classes, but I think that I think about it in a way that is incremental, and this means that it does not evidence itself in obvious ways in every one of my classes. Does that mean I don't "really" value those things? How do we judge that sort of thing? (I'll come back to this later in the post, as I'm not just asking for rhetorical effect.)

I also have difficulty with the argument that evaluating all aspects of what students do in a class in a very detailed way teaches students to approach their education as active rather than passive. To me, if they're only actively discussing for a grade, that is passive. It's not self-motivated, no matter how much they talk or how much work they do on their own. At the same time, I know that if one doesn't demonstrate as an instructor that one values active discussion, etc., that it won't necessarily happen in the classroom. I think that my approach to this is somewhat different from Manorama's because I work very hard to disrupt the active learning stuff from grades because of what I see as a contradiction between one and the other. If I am grading and reacting everything, I'm asserting my authority over every single thing that they do. I'm not saying that this is how it works in every person's classroom, mind you, but it is how it works in mine. The minute that I get out the red (or green, or purple, or whatever) pen, I'm judging, and if I attach a letter grade to something, students begin aiming for the grade instead of engaging with the material on its own. That has as much to do with my style as anything, and so I suppose that this is the point for me: there isn't a one-size-fits-all model to this stuff. The compromise that I make is that yes, students receive various kinds of grades for participation at the end of the course, but much of that grade comes from adequate completion of discrete tasks. Example: my students in upper level courses have to post on a discussion board once a week. If you do the required number of posts, you get an A. Now, I participate in the discussion and lead it, but I don't give a grade for the quality of the posts. This means that students can make of this discussion what they will, and I think this is valuable. You might say, "but it's not giving credit to those who do very well on this task in the class," but what they do on the task without fail translates into how they do on more conventionally graded assignments, so to me, this does teach them to actively engage and it does value active engagement while at the same time it gives them the responsibilty for using the assignment in such a way that it is meaningful. I police them only to the extent that I pay attention to who is posting and who isn't, and otherwise my role is pretty hands off - I just discuss along with them. Now, my authority is not entirely dispersed - they know I'm reading these posts - but it also is not absolute in the way that it would be were I grading them for quality on such an assignment. This is just one example, but I tend to like to incorporate similar kinds of assignments into all of my classes in some fashion or another because I think it gives students confidence to play with ideas without fear of negative consequences, which I think goes a long way toward inspiring active engagement.

Manorama later in her post continues:

"This is because if we really believe that writing is a process, that classroom interactions and involvement in an "academic community" is important, that "participation" means something other than giving us something to do each day so we can get paid, and that collegiality and professionalism are key resources for anyone doing literary study, then showing students that we value those processes and are assessing them is very, very important. Showing them that what they think and what they say is valuable, not just in the "finished product" but throughout the process, is important.
[. . .]
In the end, it just might come down to what we value, and how we show that we value it. Most of us, I assume, value our students' contributions and intellectual work throughout their intellectual journey in the class. How do we show that we value it?"

Now, this is a lot to which to respond, especially since I was one of the people who commented originally that I tend to be much looser in my approach to evaluating participation in my courses. But I think the reason that Manorama's post has been on my mind is that it goes back to some of the things that I've been thinking about how to measure "value" related to blogging and to service. I'm not sure if I agree that the way to demonstrate what we value is (only) through grading, just as I'm not sure that the only things that I do that have value are those that get listed on the cv or that count toward tenure. To me, the value in a liberal arts education is precisely that these objective measures don't capture all of what we value, and I think there is utility in challenging those objective measures even as we work within systems that require them. I guess what I'm playing with - both in relation to my work as a professor generally and in the classroom - is trying to break from equating value with things that "count" in traditional ways. I'm not sure if this is sensible (or if it's even possible) but that is something that's really interesting to me, and I think that it's something that's useful to consider.

On Writing

I remember the first time I really felt like I was learning how to write was my first year of college. Obviously I'd written before then, and I was always a talented writer, but I don't recall ever having felt like somebody was teaching me how to write - teaching me a process for writing - until my first year of college.

Before that, sure, I do remember being told how to write - how an essay was supposed to be structured, how a particular assignment should look - but I don't remember anybody giving me the tools to do those things. This isn't to say I wasn't given them - it may well be that I just wasn't ready to accept what I was being taught about process at that point. (Incidentally, I think one of the most important things I've learned as a teacher of writing is that some students are just not yet ready to internalize the stuff about process in their first semester of college, and this doesn't necessarily have a thing in the world to do with innate intelligence or preparedness or anything else - it's about maturity - and so again, I'm not dissing my high school teachers or anything for not teaching me a process for writing - I really think I just wasn't ready. I also think that sometimes it is naturally talented writers who most resist being given instruction about process because they've never needed to articulate their process to themselves before because they're just "good" at writing.)

So why am I thinking about learning to write and process on this sunshiney Saturday afternoon? Well, obviously, with teaching writing one often thinks about such things. But I'm also thinking about it because I'm trying to turn a 25-page article into a 16-18 page talk, and so I'm thinking a lot about my own writing process and my own strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

Weaknesses:
1) I can tend to be wordy. I know: this shocks you.
2) Sometimes, while a structure makes perfect sense to me, it can seem... "baroque"... to a reader. (That adjective is courtesy of my dissertation advisor.)
3) I can be too absolute about my interpretations.

Strengths:
1) I'm a confident writer, and I generally don't get blocked.
2) I'm completely willing to scrap pages and pages, and I do not fall in love with words or sentences that I write. Even whole paragraphs I'm totally happy to chop out of an essay if necessary, and I don't give it a second thought.
3) I have a strong voice (I think) that comes through even in formal academic prose.

Current problems:
1) How to maintain the shape of my argument and the nuances of my analysis while still chopping out pages of material? (Incidentally, I'm down to 19 now, so really I'd be fine if I just cut out 1-2 pages more.)
2) How to anticipate questions about this project when I'm not even sure I believe what I'm arguing in it. (This is a pitfall related to Strength #2 - I fear I don't really have much conviction about my literary critical claims.)
3) How artfully to direct an audience to a handout for longer quotations; how artfully to integrate read quotations in a way that isn't terribly clunky. (My personal belief is that there is no artful way to do either of these things, but a girl can dream.)

What I wish is that all writing were like blog writing, where I don't edit, where I don't anticipate responses, and where I don't feel pressure. I hate pressure. Pressure sucks. And it makes me procrastinate. So far this morning I have not even glanced at the talk I'm preparing, but rather I scheduled an appointment with a prospective pet-sitter, I talked to my mom on the phone, I played on my computer, and I invented and baked a casserole. And now I'm blogging about what I need to do with my talk I'm revising instead of working on the actual revisions.

But now I'm going to go try my casserole, and if it's any good I will post the recipe, since again, I invented it. I am very creative when I'm not getting things done, you know.

And So the Semester Is Underway

I know I've been a bad blogger of late. It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about (there has) but all of my writing mojo has gone toward other things, and so I've been doing more blog reading than blog writing as a result. (I point to this as evidence that blog writing is, at least in my case, deeply linked to any other kind of writing that I do, even if I am an academic who blogs vs. being an academic blogger or whatever way we're marking that distinction these days. Maybe I'm not writing a literary critical or theoretical blog, but the blog surely keeps me in a writing groove in a way that no other kind of less formal writing has, and so when I have to direct my attention to the formal stuff, the blog suffers.)

Anyway, though, this isn't a post about my stupid blog - I want it to be a post, rather, about my sense of what this semester is going to be like. I'm two weeks in already, I've graded one set of papers in my writing class, I've graded one set of quizzes from my lower-level lit course, and I've seen some online discussion responses from my upper-level lit students. In other words, I think I'm at a point where I can project how things are going to go and where I want to go from here with these classes.

First things first: at least at this point, I think I'm pretty lucky with the writing class. Sure, some of them are terrible writers, but at least so far, the class discussions have tended to be quite dynamic, and they seem to be really engaged with what I'm doing with them, or at least willing to put up with what I'm making them do. I've tried to make more of an effort to put each thing I'm asking of them into context with my broader goals for the course, and I think that doing that jedi mind trick stuff seems to be having a positive effect. Now, there is one girl with a sour expression who has NEVER been on time, and I think she may become a problem if she doesn't get it together. I've called her out on the tardiness thing - I start on time, so you've got to be there on time, etc. - and what she said last class was "at least it was only five minutes this time." That kind of response totally does not bode well. I've also got a couple of the kind in there who like to tell you even though you don't know them yet about all of their woes and troubles - but I think I've headed them off at the pass. And then I had another who commented on my age in the "you're not old enough to be a professor" way. I suppose I'll miss that when I start looking old enough to be a professor, but at this point it still really pisses me off. I'm not exactly the Doogie Howser of the professorial track, you know. But, in spite of the above, I'm actually feeling pretty ok about the writing class. I think that I will manage through the end of the semester, at any rate.

The class I'm most excited about is the upper-level class. The initial drop/add period is done, and it looks like I've only lost 2 of those originally enrolled, which is pretty awesome, given the amount of reading and work I expect in my classes. So far they seem to be a really good and engaged group, although they do seem to want me to spoon-feed background to them and to tell them what a text "means" more than I'd like. I'm hoping that this is alleviated once they start giving their presentations. I'm also going to have to start arranging them in a circle for discussion, and luckily I've got a room that will accommodate this. Another reason that I want to do the circle thing is that in contrast to last semester, when I had the Class of Women, this class is pretty evenly divided between male and female students, and the male students tend to be quite dynamic. One problem that I know I have is that I respond to dynamic, and so unless I'm careful, I will let those three or four students dominate the discussion and it will become a really bogus class. (I think the issue is that I myself was a dynamic participator and so I don't really understand the non-dynamic kind of student. Nevertheless, because I understand the dynamic participators, I also know that they can be a bunch of blowhards who don't really have substantive stuff to contribute, and so I know that as a teacher, however much I might like to listen to them (and myself) talk, I've got to open the discussion up to the quieter ones in the bunch and to make sure that the women don't get shut out of the conversation.) At any rate though, I'm wicked excited about this class, and I really do have high hopes for it.

Finally, in a weird twist, the class I'm most concerned about and potentially least excited about is the one that is usually my favorite course to teach. It's big - which is part of the issue but it's no bigger than usual, really, just I don't know as many students from previous classes so it feels bigger - and there were some late adds - another part of the issue - and well, they all seem really tired. I mean, I open the semester with some pretty shocking stuff, and normally students have a lot to say (which is the point of opening with that kind of thing). These ones just looked at me like their sensibilities were offended and like I was a lunatic. I toned things down last class, and they all looked at me like they were zombies or on drugs or something. They did better when I had them do group work and then we reconvened, so we'll be doing more of that, but that's not a solution to this problem. I've got to do something to get the whole class more engaged. I think one thing that may be catching me up is that I don't have as many "frequent flyers" in the class as I usually do, and with the number of students in there I'm having a hard time learning names. (I always feel like it's easier to control a class dynamic once I know who the students are.) I don't know. They all just seem really passive. Like they are less interested in talking about the content of what we've read than they are in doing discrete tasks like scanning lines of poetry. (We start with poetry, and yes, I still teach how to scan a line.) Also, for the first time ever, I've had to tell that class to take notes. Usually in my classes, students take notes furiously. Without my telling them to. I don't know. I suppose I'm feeling a bit unsure of what will happen with this group. And it sucks because usually this course is one that I don't need to think too much about.

Then there is the Quasi-Admin gig I'm doing, and that hasn't really gotten off the ground for the semester, though I suppose it will in the coming weeks.

So anyway, that's all of what I've been doing/thinking about instead of writing on the blog. Ok, now to get myself in gear and go teach.

If I'm Doing This to Myself Now....

Edited to Add (11:40 AM): Ok, so after my little tantrum this morning I graded all my papers, and I taught what I think was actually a really awesome class. Go figure.

I'm up at this bright and early hour because even at this early juncture in the semester I have put off grading until the last possible moment. Now, this isn't "real" grading - it's a short assignment - the first one that they've completed - but I feel obligated to return it today (in less than one week's time) because their second assignment is due on Friday.

Now, in theory I really believe in evaluating student work early and often, so that students get a sense of one's expectations right up front, so that students can track their progress, so that I can try to minimize the tendency to grade-grub. (I find the more assignments or "opportunities to succeed" I offer, the less bitching I hear at the end of the day, which I suppose is a time-saver ultimately, right?)

The problem here, though, is that in practice I. Am. Sick. Of. Grading.

I know, cry you a river, etc. And how can I be sick of grading in week two of the semester, and right after a long weekend?

It's composition. I am burnt the fuck out on teaching it, I resent teaching it, I barely like my students anymore, and my "pedagogy" if you can call it that in these courses is just to try to plan as much crap to pass the time quickly as possible, as neither I nor the students want to be there. (You may be surprised to note that on evals. my highest score is often on the one that evaluates my "passion for teaching" and that the most frequent written comment I get from students is "you can tell she really loves teaching." Yes, even in my comp. classes. I'm thinking that if this whole professor gig doesn't work out that I should probably try my hand at becoming an international film star.)

Part of what I'm trying to do is to strategize for the possibility that I will not ultimately get another job offer that will lessen my composition load, and to come up with a convincing argument for those who control my teaching schedule to give me a bit of a break from comp - to teach just one section of it in the fall and no sections of it next spring - but I'm not sure whether even the persuasive me can effect such a change.

And this semester, because I sold my soul to the administrative devil, I'm actually only teaching half of the comp students I normally would - 22 instead of 44 (yep, that's right folks - normal load is 44 every semester, in addition to two lit classes, and that's if they don't exceed the 22 enrollment cap. And students never drop my classes anymore, which is very frustrating indeed. I should note that the NCTE recommends that the cap should be something like 16 in comp classes). Since I need to get out of the clutches of the administrative devil at the end of this academic year in order to remain a sane and lovable and not-evil person, that means that if I can't pull some sort of rabbit out of a hat, I'm actually going to be teaching more composition and not less.

But so now I've got to go and read 44 pages of student writing that I don't want to read and to comment on it enthusiastically as if I care about what they've written and care about their ability to become better writers, even though I don't believe that I can make them into better writers. It is mentally and emotionally exhausting, and I hate it.

(By the way, this is a venting post, so please take it as such.)

Service

In a couple of posts now, I've talked about certain activities, which to this point are not on the cv, as "real" service, or as what service "should feel like." Prefer Not to Say noted this recurring theme, and asked me to say more about this Platonic Ideal of Service that seems to be rattling around in my head, and after thinking about it a bit, I figured this topic warrants its own post.

Now, I should say that I've been aware of service as part of the Big Three on which we are evaluated since I was an undergraduate, and in even in graduate school I did a couple of service-y things to enhance my cv. So it's not like I was surprised by the service aspect of the job when I started on the tenure-track. "Service" is ultimately what keeps universities running, and I'm committed to doing my part with that aspect of the job. I think that it is both unrealistic and irresponsible to act as if the "service" part of the Triumverate of Activities is insignificant and that I could be a "professor" if I focused all of my energy on teaching and research.

That said, "service" is the part of my job about which I am most ambivalent, which provides the fewest personal rewards, and which my colleagues (both at my university and elsewhere) recognize the least. That said, during the academic year, "service" takes up HUGE quantities of time, and given that this is the case, shouldn't it be a bit more rewarding? Shouldn't one receive just a teeny bit more recognition?

Now, I received good advice before embarking on my first tenure-track job, and so I was very careful about the service that I agreed to take on, at least initially. I understood the value (or lack thereof) that service would have in how I was assessed, and so I did try to maintain my primary focus on teaching and research. That said, institutional culture can erode even the best of intentions. In my department, and at my university, the service expectation for individual faculty members is quite high, particularly for those who do not have tenure. In my department, there are a number of faculty (mostly with tenure, some without) who engage in the bare minimum of service-related tasks, and everybody looks the other way (though I suppose they don't get the highest merit raises). But not everyone (tenured or untenured) has that luxury. Somebody has to do the heavy lifting - not everyone can opt out.

I'm now a little more than halfway to tenure, and in going on the market this year, I acknowledged for the first time just how much "service" I've done (am doing), and I've realized that I couldn't care less about most of it. And it occurs to me that if that is how I feel, then I'm probably not particularly effective in the work that I do related to those activities. But the thing that I've learned is that it's not really possible to take one or more of those activities off my plate. And yes, one can vow to "say no" to future "opportunities" that come one's way (but is something really an "opportunity" if one thinks it's bullshit?), but whatever vows one makes, one can be bullied (or flattered) into changing that "no" to a "yes," so making vows really doesn't fix the problem.

The problem is institutional, and one person doesn't have much power to resist the overwhelming expectations of an institution. If one cares about one's work and one's department, one says yes when one should probably say no, at least sometimes. And if one wants to be seen as collegial and a team-player, one says yes with a smile on her face.

I think it's that hypocrisy that is the problem. On the one hand, we're supposed to say yes with a smile on our faces, because isn't "serving" something that indicates personal volition? But I don't feel like what I'm doing is voluntary. I feel like a lot of it is coerced. And then I do a crappy job, and then I feel bad about doing a crappy job, but then if I didn't do a crappy job there really isn't anybody who would do a better job, so isn't a crappy job better than nothing at all?

It's not that I feel this way about every single service activity I do. There is some service (even on my cv) that does matter to me. But the percentage of service that does matter to me is probably 10%. The rest just feels like a burden. And so then I feel like I should definitely not take on any other "service-like" projects, but then this reading group falls into my lap, and here I am, saying yes again. Except for that I'm actually excited about leading the reading group, and I want to do this service. So of course I'm going to do it, right? But in the end, it is going to go on the cv in exactly the same section as serving on Useless Committee #472, which just sucks to me.

I think another issue is that at my institution, while service is simultaneously compulsory and unrewarded, some kinds of service are privileged over others. The kinds of service that I care most about - service to my profession, service to my department, service to students - are lower on the totem pole than service to, say, the community or the university. Service to students doesn't really exist because somebody had the bright idea to put advising under teaching in terms of how it's evaluated. What this means to somebody like me is that I can't just do service that I care about because other people don't care about it. At the end of the day, it all just makes me feel disgruntled and unappreciated.

To me, there should be some sort of a system in place in which people can play to their strengths in service - just as they do in teaching and in research. And so when I talk about my idealized vision of what service might mean, that's what I'm talking about: activities that do good while at the same time providing both tangible and intangible rewards to those who serve. I imagine a time (and this might only be imaginary) in which that's what service felt like in this profession, which is how it got the name "service" instead of "administrative duties."

I'm not saying that I expect to love every service activity that I do, but shouldn't the ratio be reversed - 10% bullshit work that just needs to get done and 90% stuff I'm good at and care about? And shouldn't all kinds of service be equally valued?

But that's not the world in which I live. I think it is a world that exists at other institutions - or at least I think that something closer to that exists at other institutions. So for now, I've got three possible options: 1) keep doing everything and hating it (not really an option); 2) get another job (not an option entirely within my control); 3) the moment I get tenure, quit everything I don't care about and then add back in activities always keeping in mind my personal commitment to them (the only option that I really have total control over implementing).

You know, I don't want to be departmental dead weight, but I am sick of lugging around other people's dead weight on my back.

The Death of the Blogger

Today, Michael Berube wrote his last post. Berube's blog was one of the first "academic blogs" I encountered, and while I think I only commented maybe once or twice, I was a pretty faithful reader (though I must admit that I didn't get through some of the longer posts). When I heard that he was going to stop blogging, it made me feel a bit sad, and it also made me wonder whether and when a day will come when I, too, no longer want to blog. What purpose do blogs serve? What does it mean when a writer decides to leave the blogosphere? And what are the conditions that one needs in order consistently to write for an audience? Each blogger has to answer those questions for himself or herself. I wish that something I could write here could somehow make Michael keep blogging, though I'm not sure why I feel that way. I think in part it's because I'll really miss the posts about Jamie, such as this most recent one, which made me laugh my head off.

Berube's not the only one re-evaluating this week. Ancrene Wiseass, too, seems to have decided to leave blogging behind - or at least to put it aside for a long while.

On the one hand, we shouldn't be surprised. The medium of blogging is such that most blogs don't last very long. At least I feel like I heard that someplace. But somehow the loss of these two particular blogs from the (relatively) small list of blogs in my little corner of the Blogiverse has caught me by surprise. I always assumed that the prolific Berube would blog into infinity - that I would quit long before he would. And Ancrene Wiseass began blogging almost a year after I started, so it never occurred to me that AW would stop before I did.

So as I sit here writing this post, I'm wondering about the viability of this genre in the long term. Can we keep the community of academic bloggers alive? Is this, ultimately, a passing fad? I know that I still feel like blogging, but what if everybody else decides to stop?

Over at Acephalous, Scott wonders whether " "academic blogging" is strangling the life from "academics who blog." Careerists like myself may unwittingly pressure "academics who blog" into thinking their blogs must be more than mere blogs to justify their existence." I've got to say, I don't think that's happening. I think, at least for me, what's kept me blogging - pseudonymously, and in a more "raw" fashion (per Berube) is 1) that I value this kind of writing about my life and about the profession and 2) I was able to develop a voice that feels consistently comfortable. I think that #2 is the real key to keeping "academics who blog" blogging. I am in no way seduced by the idea of writing a purely "academic blog" that is inextricably linked to my real life professional identity, partly because I don't feel like I could be consistently comfortable with the voice that such a blog would require me to develop - at least not every single day. I think that one of the great things and one of the challenging things about this genre is that it requires one to make the rules of one's expression for oneself. Sure, there are conventions, like linking to those to whom one refers, or putting pictures of one's cats up on Friday or whatever, but ultimately, there is nobody policing one's blog - no peer reviewers, no editors, no publishers. Now, more solidly "academic" blogs do fit more closely within the conventions of academic writing and publishing, but if you take a look at some of those, such as Amardeep Singh's blog, you will still see that the form is looser - that it doesn't strictly adhere to the conventions of academic writing and publishing. So will the push to institutionalize academic blogs suffocate academics who blog - push them out of blogging altogether? I don't think that has to be the case. But I do think that blogs will continue to go defunct in this community of bloggers in part because finding and maintaining a writing voice for an audience is no easy thing to do. And sometimes we outgrow our voices, and it's not always easy to see a way to reinvent ourselves in writing, just as it's not easy to see a way to reinvent ourselves in our lives.

In Not Facing the Start of the Semester News....

This has been an unproductive weekend for the ages. Well, that's not entirely true. But I'm not facing that school's starting, and this means that some of the things that were on my weekend to-do list have been postponed until I can't put them off anymore, i.e., to the school week. What I have accomplished is the following:

1) Made 5 new recipes: A tomato and bean casserole (delish), Indian Tomato Soup (yummy), tapenade, Shrimp with Arugula (pretty good, except that cooking shrimp kind of freaks me out - just as does cooking carbonara, so I probably won't make the shrimp recipe again, as even though it was good, I don't know - I just am kind of grossed out by the thought of it), and today, Loubia bi Zeit (green beans with olive oil and tomatoes - one of my favorite Lebanese dishes, and one of my new year's resolutions is to learn to cook lebanese food, which is no small feat because I can't exactly learn from my Tayta as she doesn't really speak English, and as I don't really speak arabic, I've decided the best course of action is to do my best with a Lebanese cookbook and then to watch her once I've done some things myself a few times, so the resolution is to make one recipe per week, sometimes repeating recipes in order to perfect them - or just because I love them) and now I'm making a mediterannean chicken recipe, in which you stuff boneless skinless chicken breasts with a mixture of tapenade and feta cheese.

2) I cleaned my toilet.

Yeah, that's kind of all I've accomplished. I have not...

1) done laundry
2) organized my closet
3) done some record-keeping things
4) emailed students about Notoriously Difficult Book reading group that I've agreed to lead
5) looked over stuff for the first day of classes TOMORROW (and can I just say that the new MLA dates are really going to suck balls for people with my academic calendar? I know, I know, the current dates suck for many people, especially for those with small children, but as much as the current dates suck, I still prefer them to the new ones, if only because I will have ABSOLUTELY NO TIME BEFORE MY SEMESTER BEGINS once the new dates go into effect. I'm sorry, but I need this time.)
6) Straightened up around the homestead and vaccuumed. But as the kitchen and bathroom are clean, I'm not beating myself up for this. I mean, really, who cares about a little clutter? It's not like the Man-Kitty minds...

While I've been busy not accomplishing the above, I have been busy with the following:

1) Watching the conclusion to the ANTM marathon on VH1
2) Watching The Wedding Crashers, twice.
3) Watching the following movies on TV, with commercials: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, A Few Good Men, a bit of Top Gun, Legally Blonde, A Walk to Remember, The Wedding Planner, a bit of Wimbeldon.
4) Watching the following movies on cable: Hope Floats, Ordinary People, The Family Stone, and I'm not even sure what else, but I think there were actually more movies than that on cable that I watched all or part of.

I think I might be depressed. What else can all of this couch potato behavior possibly mean?

But whether I'm actually depressed or not, I can tell you this: I am not energized about this spring semester, I am not happy with certain aspects of my job, and I am feeling fairly down about the prospect of most aspects of my life in this location, at this job, at this point. And I just don't have the energy to do anything about it - especially if there is even a sliver of hope that I might get a campus visit (which I have now convinced myself is only the tiniest sliver and that I've fucked everything totally up with trying to get out of here).

Maybe the start of the semester will be good, if only because I'll have to interact with people and get out of this funk.

In the Network

On the first day of MLA, after I'd gotten settled in my hotel room, I wandered over to the convention to get a plastic holder for my nametag and to see whether I saw anybody I knew wandering around. I ran into a friend from grad school who is currently in a VAP and who before that was in another contract job. He's basically been on the market in some fashion for about five years, if I figure it rightly. He has basically had no chance to develop courses in his field of specialty until this year. This year he had one interview. That interview was on the second day of MLA, and as soon as it was done, this friend was leaving the convention.

On the third day of MLA, I was supposed to try to meet up with another grad school friend. This friend is also not in a tenure-track position, and this friend has been on the market pretty solidly for what is now four or five years. I never ended up being able to meet up with the friend, as he was staying outside the city and not at the convention and I'm a social butterfly who made plans with about 47,000 people and so this friend slipped through the cracks, but we did talk on the phone that night when I returned back to my hotel. He also had one interview this year.

Now, I don't bring up these examples to be uncool to these people whom I know from grad school, but I suppose both - in conjunction with a conversation I had with Bitch, Ph.D. in which she talked about the difference between her previous MLA conventions and this one where she was in kind of an "in crowd" - got me thinking about insiders and outsiders at MLA and how the social aspects of the profession play into the material and, well, professional aspects of it.

People talk a lot about "networking" and its importance in the World of Business, and people do mention it in an academic context, too, but I think that the idea that networking is crucial to one's ability to make a success of oneself in the profession is a dirty little secret. We're all supposed to be brilliant, right? Academia is a meritocracy, right? It's not playing fair to use connections to get ahead, right? I think that is what many would say, as if this profession is somehow above such things. I also think that all of those sorts of responses are multiplied because many academics can be somewhat introverted people and they make a ready alibi for those who feel uncomfortable with networking - they can say that they just choose not to sully themselves by networking, when really the thought of it makes them miserable.

I think it's a mistake to look at networking as some sort of optional activity in this profession. I think it is crucial to be "in the network" instead of on the fringes (at MLA, at other conferences, etc.) in this profession. And the only way that I know how to talk about that is to talk about my own experiences in this regard.

I was lucky. I had an undergraduate thesis adviser who threw me into the network before I even knew what the network was. I was 21, it was my first ever conference (a small one, to which my adviser had encouraged me to send an abstract), and somehow I found myself (because I was following my adviser around like a puppy) inside an "in-crowd." I surely didn't belong in this crowd, but somehow I did become lasting acquaintances with a handful of generous people who also just so happen to be pretty important contacts in this tiny little subfield within my field of specialization. So how did I do it? Again, part of it is luck. I was in the right place (a Holiday Inn bar) at the right time (the last night of the conference). But the other part of it is capitalizing on opportunities, which is not luck but rather something that one has to learn to do and something that one gets better at the more that one does it. I was so naive and wide-eyed at this first conference of mine that when people asked me what I was working on or what I was interested in, I told them. I didn't worry about how I appeared because I felt so out of my league already that I figured I could say anything and it wouldn't matter. Because that was my first experience, and because it worked out so well, I pretty much continued in that fashion, and that is where you see me at the present day. So luck, yes, and my own personality, yes, but also the willingness to use situations for professional gain, which may sound crass, but it's what we're all trying to do at the end of the day, so let's just call it what it is and be done with it.

I don't think that this is the experience for most people who enter graduate school and attend their first conferences. I think what happens to most graduate students is that they hang around with other graduate students, which, to put it bluntly, isn't going to get you anywhere. Now, at my first conference, none of the graduate students would talk to me because I was not yet a grad student myself, and so I ended up talking to all of the "important" people. Once I became a grad student, I did end up in the "grad student group" at a number of conferences, and while I did make some friends out of that experience, I've got to tell you: kvetching with other grad students is not going to get you publications, it's not going to get you a job, it's not going to get you, well, anything other than some pals that you kvetch with for a few days, and you probably won't even keep in touch with the great majority of them afterward. Hanging out exclusively with grad students from your grad program (or grad school friends if you're out)? The dumbest thing that you possibly could do.

Sure, it's more comfortable. It's really anxiety-producing to talk to strangers (yes, even for Dr. Crazy, depending on the situation), but if you don't, then you have no engagement with your profession. It matters if you know somebody who knows somebody else. It matters that you don't waste your time at conferences like they're summer camp or a vacation - they are a professional activity, and what you do at them (and which ones you choose to attend) can make a huge difference in your reputation in your field.

(Aside: I do have friends in my peer group within my field - I'm not totally careerist in developing relationships with people - but I'm trying to drive home the point that as a junior person, one has to be aware that any time one spends with other junior people may mean that you're not having a conversation with a senior person who can help you right now with your career.)

I feel like a pompous ass for writing this post, but the people I cited at the beginning clearly didn't get the memo about this stuff. I'm astonished by the fact that I got the memo, but I think I did because I was always more confident in my ability to chat people up than in my ability to wow strangers with the brilliance of my mind. Also, I'm an academic whore and I have no problem with the idea that the quality of my ideas isn't necessarily the only thing that's going to get me where I want to go in the profession. What that means now is that I'm an officer in one professional society and active in two more. I've organized and/or chaired panels for conferences including MLA. I've been invited to publish things.

Those things all matter in this profession, and they mattered on my CV when it came to the job market this time around. Who knows whether I'll get further in the job search process, but I'll tell you what: I had more interviews, having sent out far fewer applications, than a lot of the people to whom I spoke who finished their Ph.D.s around the same time as me. I've got to think that being Miss Congeniality and networking to my advantage has played some role in that success.

So what did my MLA look like?

Wednesday:

• Arrived in Philadelphia, met a colleague on the shuttle and planned to have lunch on Friday
• Ran into friend from Grad School and hung out with him for about an hour
• Prepped for interviews
• Attended a panel
• Prepped for interviews

Thursday:

• Interviewing
• Blogging panel
• Lunch with stranger, who it turns out submitted an article at a journal whose editor I know, so I took her card so I could pass along a good word
• Went shopping for wine and cheese for one of my societies
• Went to grad school party
• Went to society party #1
• Went to society party #2
• Thought I was going to stay in, but ended up at Blogger Meet-up #1 late-night

Friday:

• Slept in (as I was very hung over and tired)
• Lunch with colleague from Wednesday
• Popped in at the end of a panel to say hello to professor from grad school who is no longer at grad school; also to get directions to society party #3
• Went to society party #3
• Went for a drink with friend from society party #3
• Met up with many bloggers and had dinner

Saturday

• Went to a meeting for MLA allied societies
• Went to blogger panel
• Went for coffee with bloggers
• Went to airport and collapsed from exhaustion

Now, people, that's what a strong networking MLA looks like. It doesn't look like attending a ton of panels (although sometimes attending a panel can be good networking, but my point is that many times it's not and it really depends on the panel), and it doesn't look like yucking it up only with people you knew from grad school. And yes, meeting up with bloggers totally counts as networking. It's not that one needs to be mercenary about making connections, but being alert to the fact that it's a good thing to do never hurt anybody. And you don't need to be a nametag gazer to get this done - because I'm really quite an oblivious person and I never end up meeting people because I've scoped them out and so I fail miserably at the nametag gazing thing - you just need to be active in your specialization, and particularly in the tiny subspecializations within that broader field. If you show up enough, you're bound to get sucked into the network, you know?

You won't, however, get sucked into the network if you don't belong to any societies, if you don't go to any parties, and if you don't talk to random people at lunch or on the airport shuttle or whatever. If you don't hang out alone. That's the way it goes. And being in the network matters, I've got to think, in terms of one's ability to get jobs. Most of us just aren't brilliant enough to manage that on smarts alone.

Again, I apologize for being so absolute and arrogant sounding in this post. I think part of that comes out of frustration. I hate looking at my friends who've been slogging away at this year after year, who've been utterly beaten down by this profession, and feeling like I want to shake them because they're not doing some things that I think might help them. I also hate feeling like my friends resent me because of the successes that I've had - I got a job my first year on the market, ABD, so yes, it can happen - like they think I'm a fraud and have succeeded as I have only because I'm such a social butterfly, rather than realizing that one has nothing to do with the other. I may or may not be a fraud, but the social butterfly stuff helps even those who are not frauds, if that makes sense. I don't know. I just wish that this networking stuff wasn't so mystified, that in smaller professional organizations there was more of an effort to bring junior people and grad students into the network (and there is in some - but notably not in others), and that there was more emphasis on this part of things as part of grad student training. Sure, your "ideas" matter, but there are so many parts of this profession that have nothing to do with the quality of one's ideas.

Ok, I think I've run out of steam. Maybe people can comment about their own experiences with networking and about their experiences with making professional connections? Or about why they opt out of being in the network? I feel like this would be a good discussion to have, and might be of use to grad student readers especially.