When I'm not writing about the things I think about while grading papers, I also intend, though I can't promise, to cover all of the following in the coming couple of weeks:
-The flood. Like, for real.
-Melissa's wedding.
-Jodi's wedding, because it was over a year ago and it was lovely and I'm a bum.
-The first entry (and maybe the second) in the Presidential Biographies series.
Also, there were all those Christianity ones that I was going to get to, and I really did start the research for one, but I left off not because I couldn't get good information, but because any big question about Christianity requires so long an answer, with so much backstory, that frankly I despair of ever doing it well, and goodness knows that the internet doesn't need any more Christian theology done badly. But I may try to get those going after all.
9.30.2011
Self-Description
The descriptive essay is our first unit, but in some ways it's the hardest to explain. I was never taught how to teach or grade creative writing, and in many ways that's what description is. Yet I do have reasons, ones I think are good, for choosing that unit as one of the four I've picked out of our textbook: it's a good backdrop for grammar lessons; it gives them a chance to write about their lives while lowering the chances that they'll just recycle an old college-application essay of theirs; in some ways it can be less intimidating a genre for them, even though it's more so for me.
The first homework assignment also has them talk about themselves, though in more of a question-and-answer format. At the end, I give what I hope is a tactful plea for people to tell me if they've got any backstory (primarily because FERPA rules don't allow me to know about learning or other disabilities unless the student self-discloses, but the presence thereof sometimes stands to change the way I structure my lessons): Is there anything else I should know about you that I don't know yet? And the question does draw out probably most of the students with obvious goings-on: I have Asperger's, or I'm dyslexic, or even, as I got twice this semester (from students who both look to still be in their twenties), I don't have any parents anymore.
It's in the essays that I sometimes get backstory that's harder to summarize. I flipped through one guy's the other day, noted that he'd missed a lot of the difference between subjective and objective detail (a big part of the assignment), and expected that his sports story was one of those, well, mildly tiresome play-by-plays of his role in a glorious game; I've gotten them before. Going back to grade it, though, I discovered that it's actually about how he, a team star, broke his leg on the night all the football scouts were there to watch him. (My quick Google search brought up a local-TV story mentioning him by name.) The game is from only a year ago, and he now sits in my class here at Broome, where we don't have a football team. Though he's missed much of the form of the genre, he does succeed in "show, don't tell" in a way I didn't expect.
And sometimes, of course, you see things that you almost aren't meant to see. In his first paragraph, the same guy works in the second person to build an image of what it's like to be his team's star. The last sentence of his paragraph has two clauses, and the weight of the sentence, at first glance, falls on the second one: but what happens is something that no one expected, he writes. But stuck in before it, as almost a throwaway line, is that first clause: Your parents are proud of you for what seems to be the first time in your life. He moves from that quickly and, predictably, never brings it up again.
It seems unfair somehow to act more sympathetically towards the students who decide to be more vulnerable. But I do find myself doing it, or at least looking at them differently.
The first homework assignment also has them talk about themselves, though in more of a question-and-answer format. At the end, I give what I hope is a tactful plea for people to tell me if they've got any backstory (primarily because FERPA rules don't allow me to know about learning or other disabilities unless the student self-discloses, but the presence thereof sometimes stands to change the way I structure my lessons): Is there anything else I should know about you that I don't know yet? And the question does draw out probably most of the students with obvious goings-on: I have Asperger's, or I'm dyslexic, or even, as I got twice this semester (from students who both look to still be in their twenties), I don't have any parents anymore.
It's in the essays that I sometimes get backstory that's harder to summarize. I flipped through one guy's the other day, noted that he'd missed a lot of the difference between subjective and objective detail (a big part of the assignment), and expected that his sports story was one of those, well, mildly tiresome play-by-plays of his role in a glorious game; I've gotten them before. Going back to grade it, though, I discovered that it's actually about how he, a team star, broke his leg on the night all the football scouts were there to watch him. (My quick Google search brought up a local-TV story mentioning him by name.) The game is from only a year ago, and he now sits in my class here at Broome, where we don't have a football team. Though he's missed much of the form of the genre, he does succeed in "show, don't tell" in a way I didn't expect.
And sometimes, of course, you see things that you almost aren't meant to see. In his first paragraph, the same guy works in the second person to build an image of what it's like to be his team's star. The last sentence of his paragraph has two clauses, and the weight of the sentence, at first glance, falls on the second one: but what happens is something that no one expected, he writes. But stuck in before it, as almost a throwaway line, is that first clause: Your parents are proud of you for what seems to be the first time in your life. He moves from that quickly and, predictably, never brings it up again.
It seems unfair somehow to act more sympathetically towards the students who decide to be more vulnerable. But I do find myself doing it, or at least looking at them differently.
9.13.2011
Bitlet on Aftermath
BCC was still closed yesterday (not because it was so flooded, but because a number of our students couldn't get to us), so I came with a church team to help a family in our church who'd been flooded badly (though reportedly not as badly as they'd been in 2006).
I'll write more about that later, too. But while I was there, I was out in the backyard for a while at one point, and I was struck by how odd the colors looked. The whole scene looked a little like a doctored photo - some of it was normal-colored, some seemed sepia-toned.
The sepia came from the mud, which had covered the grass without much obscuring the shapes of the blades - like frost.
I'll write more about that later, too. But while I was there, I was out in the backyard for a while at one point, and I was struck by how odd the colors looked. The whole scene looked a little like a doctored photo - some of it was normal-colored, some seemed sepia-toned.
The sepia came from the mud, which had covered the grass without much obscuring the shapes of the blades - like frost.
9.11.2011
Instead
I spent a couple of hours writing a post about the flood. Then the internet ate it.
So you're going to have to wait a little longer.
Today it's been a decade since September 11th, of course. And I wish my words about that were something other than this: don't spread blame any more than you have to today about anything that's happened in the past ten years. Build people up. Don't look for a villain. There's probably a time for that, but whether I have any authority in the matter or not, I don't think today's that time. Today, just fly a flag, just mourn the dead; just be, to what extent possible, at peace.
So you're going to have to wait a little longer.
Today it's been a decade since September 11th, of course. And I wish my words about that were something other than this: don't spread blame any more than you have to today about anything that's happened in the past ten years. Build people up. Don't look for a villain. There's probably a time for that, but whether I have any authority in the matter or not, I don't think today's that time. Today, just fly a flag, just mourn the dead; just be, to what extent possible, at peace.
9.10.2011
Second Bitlet (Seriously, It's Not Much Better than Twitter on Here, Is It?)
So-o, we're kind of under mandatory water conservation (which I suspect is being violated by a large number of our county's citizens today, but never mind that for now), which means no showering/laundry/dishwashing if we can help it. ...Pretty soon, we're essentially not gonna be able to help it. And I do go back to BCC on Monday, if I read the college president's message right, so I would like to have clothes on that don't stink. I'd already been starting to run low on clean clothes before the flooding hit, and then, well...
Another funny thing that's come out of the flood: thanks to said water conservation, yesterday I started to see day-or-two-old facial hair at church on guys who typically don't wear much of it. On Brendan I think I've seen it a time or few before (probably the time he had pneumonia, for starters), but on the conscientious and more businesslike Mark Dreher, it made him seem more casual in a slightly unusual way, like I'd run into him on a camping vacation or something. Which, in a way, I suppose I had.
Another funny thing that's come out of the flood: thanks to said water conservation, yesterday I started to see day-or-two-old facial hair at church on guys who typically don't wear much of it. On Brendan I think I've seen it a time or few before (probably the time he had pneumonia, for starters), but on the conscientious and more businesslike Mark Dreher, it made him seem more casual in a slightly unusual way, like I'd run into him on a camping vacation or something. Which, in a way, I suppose I had.
9.09.2011
Bitlet (More to Come)
Best thing I've done so far today: keeping it as short as possible (because of the water-conservation requests), and feeling a little like Lizzie from "Goblin Market" as I kept my mouth shut tight as the water ran off my face (since we're under a boil-water advisory now), I took a shower. For the first time since about seven-thirty on Wednesday morning. And my thick hair being clean and fluffy feels really good.
9.08.2011
Flood
Binghamton's been flooded again - it was supposed to be about another 95 years before we were likely to get another as bad as '06's, but here it is anyway. All kinds of areas are flooded; all kinds of people have been evacuated. It's our second big-deal flood in just over five years.
Carrie and I are home and safe, with power, without (so far, please God) a flooded basement. Some of my relatives and friends are not so lucky. Please pray for the Southern Tier.
I can afford to be a little excited at a chance to really do some good - a generosity largely born of privilege, given that it's easy to offer when your hands are full. But I am interested to see what blessings will come from this, as well as tragedy. And I'm glad to be here in my city instead of watching from someplace else, glad to be standing with the people who make this my home.
Carrie and I are home and safe, with power, without (so far, please God) a flooded basement. Some of my relatives and friends are not so lucky. Please pray for the Southern Tier.
I can afford to be a little excited at a chance to really do some good - a generosity largely born of privilege, given that it's easy to offer when your hands are full. But I am interested to see what blessings will come from this, as well as tragedy. And I'm glad to be here in my city instead of watching from someplace else, glad to be standing with the people who make this my home.