teaching: May 2007 Archives

There was no (new) blood on the carpet as a result of the Milan-Liverpool Champions Final yesterday. If anyone supported Liverpool wisely kept it quiet.

There really isn't any old blood on the carpet either, although Muffin remains disgruntled at MeiMei's presence and continues to expand the casualty list. :-/

Linus and I talked about the course I'm teaching online this summer, particularly the challenge of meeting people only through their minds - or, more precisely, only through how words show the mind-at-work. Jinglan showed off some bridges she has designed as greenways for Walden Pond (see the Executive Summary to understand the need and scope of this project). We mused on the metaphor of communication for these connectors that allow ecosystems to stay connected, and the metaphor of literal connectors (bridges, greenways) for the process of communication.

Using text is so tricky. I knew, for instance, that on two occasions recently I tried to present deadpan, not using my characteristic parenthetically enclosed exclamation point (!) or a smiley face :-) or even the quotations marks that would have denoted I was using my interlocutor's label: "stunningly handsome," "insensitive psychologist." How does this effect how I am read? Do those who know me catch the jest or wonder if I'm psychotic? Do those who do not know me consider this rhetorical slippage or an indicator of a personality on the edge? ;-)

Alas, just like words uttered into the vacuum of space, text sent hurling through cyberspace cannot be retrieved! Evidence can be erased, but the trace remains...

How hard can we play? :-/ And how shall I carry this lesson into this next round of teaching - online?

Thus Julius Lester concluded his speech at Wednesday’s second annual Celebration of Writing ceremony, A Journey in Words, honoring outstanding work from students in the UMass Writing Program. I thought of my students and their experience in “Section 71” this semester. I am not sure if I unnerved them (?) with my responses to their third self-reflection letters of the term but it did seem as if they were desperate to escape our last day of class. Had I worked them too hard? Expected too much? Do the stories they tell of College Writing reflect the trust and faith I have in them as human beings?

After my first batch of final conferences I am relieved, although some students may yet imagine that there could have been an easier way to achieve their success. I am incredibly proud of the final reflection letters I have read to date; each student has written in moving terms about their growth and shows maturity through the choice and development of their unique theme. Professor Lester provided me with a simpler framework to ask the question I wanted the students to answer in these cumulative and summary reflections on what they have achieved as writers over the semester: What is the story you now have to tell about yourself as a writer?

I appreciated so many parts of Professor Lester’s address about the “unique power of story” as a metaphor for living. My awareness of the story I invite my students into through asking them to learn publicly by doing most of their homework on an online software platform has deepened considerably. First and foremost, I learn from them. The power of position that I use as a teacher is to create the conditions under which I learn best. I have understood this about myself for a long time, but had not fully grasped the way in which my ambition to continue growing structures the learning process for my students as a mirror to mine. This revelation occurred in conversation with my students a few weeks ago when they were (once again!) critiquing my take on the standard curriculum.

The results of this pedagogy are more apparent this semester than they have been in the past. I hope this is because I am actually improving the ways in which I set and explain expectations and guidelines. Notes I’ve made to myself over the past few weeks will guide me as I revise the experiment for next semester’s new group of incoming freshfolk. I will enjoy the summer prior (!), but am already eager to get on with applying this term’s lessons. I am grateful to my current students for their efforts – the mix of challenge and compliment combine to enhance my life-story: “a narrative in which we see ourselves and our experience….[my story of teaching tells] something of myself… who we are and/or a vision of who we would like to be.”

Professor Lester got it right: “We make-up stories about individuals based on appearance [skin color, gender, sexual orientation, etc] and nations make up stories about peoples.” I invite and encourage my students to make up their own stories, to bind themselves in connection through (the small) shared experience of this class, and to create and affirm – together – ways to overcome adversity.

Selfishly, I want to come along for the ride. :-)

"I don't know what I think until I write it." ~ Sonia reporting on a discourse analysis of international development workers.

Gregory Bateson had much to do with the term, metacommunication. (I will assume no insult against sign language is intended in this brief definition).

Too dense for my students (at least for use in the next few days), A Meta-Communication Model for Structuring Intercultural Communication Action Patterns looks like something to review for the next phase of wiki-instruction. This one, though, is intriguing if only for its abstract on "phantom intelligence transmitted by the writer to the reader" (Four Problems Relating To Awareness of Metacommunication in Business Correspondence). I had some Metacommunication in Rough and Tumble Play with the Magazine Teama today. Partly because of time management issues and partly because of a reluctance to take up their own authority. (We are going to have a way cool mag, though - everyone will be proud!)

I'll have to study up on ethology before I can understand The Development of Social Interaction, Play, and Metacommunication in Mammals: An Ethological Perspective. A simpler definition is found at wikipedia. The challenge for my students is to imagine (and write about) metacommunication in their own - and each other's - writings.

Should instructors inflate student grades because students did not enjoy class as much as they wish?

Or, should instructors give students easy A's, because we all know that learning is hard work and - come on - we're all smart enough already, aren't we?

My current students think that apology points might be warranted. After all, despite what they admit they learned (!), they still think I could have been easier in terms of grading, and possibly even more lax with my expectations (not to mention I should never have shown such a boring movie in class!) What do you think?

:-)