A Toast

Amidst the craziness of graduation weekend, several of my undergrads, now graduates, asked me to give a toast at their celebratory gathering. I was both flattered and excited to honor them thusly:

I have a difficult time reading the newspaper yet find myself sipping coffee every morning, pouring over the headlines in the New York Times. More often than not, there is some inflammatory headline about the decline of America’s schools, the sloth of the teachers who fill them, and the ludicrous idea that just anyone can teach. My blood boils for a moment until I think about the people in this room. You, the TAL class of 2011, remind me that there are good, hardworking educators with fresh ideas, seemingly unlimited energy, and a deep-seated desire to help children live lives of their own choosing and I find myself suddenly calm. Over the course of the last two years, I have been fortunate enough to teach you, learn with you, and watch you grow into formidable educators. I am in awe of your resolve, of your diligence, and believe, whole-heartedly, of your potential. You will do brilliant things, just as you have done brilliant things over the course of your undergraduate career. When you do brilliant things, you enable the students in your classroom to do brilliant things. We say that children are the future; I propose that you, my friends, are the future and I can’t wait until the New York Times gets wind of the good you will do. So let’s raise a glass and toast to the TAL class of 2011 – to the hard work you have done and the harder work you will do. There is no one more equipped, more ready to handle it than you.

We're going to avoid the fact that I actually forgot to toast anyone, but I like to think my words were somewhat pretty.

Leaving the Semester

The semester isn't quite over yet, but it's ridiculously close. I've spent the whole of the last two days meeting with my undergrads, engaging them in exit interviews before they leave campus for the summer. I've come to really enjoy the interview structure, allowing me a more personalized way to end the class. 

As I think about the interviews and my own teaching this semester, a few things pop out at me: 

* I like writing with my class. For the collaborative paper assignment this semester, students worked in groups using Google docs to write a paper around a hot topic in literacy education. I would go through each and every paper weekly and edit with them, leaving notes and suggestions in the margins. It's a time-consuming but valuable tool as I've struggled for years with attempting to think about how to help my students be better writers; feedback on the final paper always arrives too late. 

* I need to continue focusing on developing habits of mind with my students rather than simply a culmination of grades. I've been struck by my students and their focus on grades rather than learning content and by delaying grades until the end (rather cruel), I think I facilitated more development of content rather than simply checking things off of a list. 

* I need to think of more ways to include (a) children's literature and (b) phonics into my assessment class. I was struck by the lack of knowledge my students had about children's literature, despite thinking that they would connect students to literature and that would make the students interested in reading. How can teachers connect students to books if they don't read books themselves? Additionally, I was shocked to find the lack of phonics information held by my students. Normally, I teach the fall section of this class and we spend a large amount of time on phonics. That the students didn't have this makes me nervous - I need to think of ways to incorporate more phonics in everything I do. 

* I need to have these interviews earlier in the semester. I love getting to know them and can accelerate our relationships by moving this to earlier in the semester. 

Two interviews to go. The rest of the week will be spent finding an apartment, working on arrangements for a conference later in the semester, and thinking about extending my dissertation data collection. 

And there must be some knitting. Soon. 

ABD

It wasn't until I finished eating my ice cream last night that I realized I was a PhD candidate. No longer a student, I was a candidate. Crap. I need to make things happen now, don't I? 

Note To Self: Qualifying Exams

Our department allows us to write our own questions for our qualifying exams. While I thought I had prepared adequately for them, I wanted to quickly jot down a few thoughts about the process so that, should I ever find myself working through the same process (hopefully from another perspective), I have some insights into how to make it a better process for all. 

Throughout the thirty days, organization was key. The above? It's what somewhat worked for me: piles of books based on what conceptual material they were dealing with, a file jacket with articles organized in file folders along the same lines, and a Mendeley database. Toward the end, it did get a little dicey, but I'm unsure any organization system can survive me caught within the violent thrust of a deadline. 

When composing these questions, I was primarily concerned with the material to be covered within them. I should have paid attention to the products that were expected as well - I was constantly struggling a workshop question that I really had no clue what was actually expected of me. I did too much and fear I did none of it very well at all. (This fear has since been disbanded. It was fine - just not as complete as I would have perhaps liked.) 

Set realistic guidelines for how you will spend your time with your questions. I thought I would work through one question a week but spent the first week reading. That killed my week of revising, really, but I had the opportunity to cover a lot of material I hadn't covered in my coursework. It forced me to shift my plans, though. Also: make sure you know how and in what format your committee wants your materials. 

I keep thinking of these exams, this body of writing as a beginning point for the work that will begin in August, a space to begin thinking about the ways in which the kiddos and I will engage in making meaning through technology. It doesn't have to be perfect but I need to know what those spaces are where I have no covered something. For me, this is an undertheorization of power, a generalized sense of identity, and an awkward wielding of standpoint theory. All things I will read up on and form opinions of before my defense. It doesn't need to be perfect. Just workable. 

Above all: if you're in the middle of your exams: breathe. What you have learned will come together in surprising ways. It's do-able despite seeming totally ridiculous while you're within them. 

Lists rather than actual posts.

I've been meaning to post for about four days now but haven't seemed to find the time. As such, I have a ton of stuff in my head that I need to get out, which will result in the following list:

I have the best roomies ever. This past week was filled with anxiety and woe as I had... 

...a keynote address to give on Friday. Don't I look all scholarly-like? I was asked to give the keynote at a small conference here on campus, the only directive was to make it inspirational. When I signed on, I figured I could pull it off without a problem. Only when I realized the Dean of the School of Ed was last year's speaker (and my course supervisor and on of my teacher heroes was the speaker the year before that) did I start falling apart a bit. As I wrote last entry (which also consisted of a list - let's hope this is not a habit I'm starting here), who am I to give this talk at a conference about exemplary? Crap. So I avoided myself all together and talked about my kids, our time together, and how important they are to me still. I talked about exemplary work in college as a contract for future exemplary work, binding them to providing students with thoughtful, deliberate instruction while still being aware of who their students are as people. Reviews have been positive, which is good. (Notes to self for future speeches, should I ever be asked again: you over-plan. Remember thinking you had about ten minutes of dead air time so you hurried up and wrote more? Yeah, don't do that. You forget that people need time to laugh, time to think. Oh, and just put notes on your PPT slides. You are not a reader of the screen. You know this, trust yourself.) 

I finished Sweater Quest, by the hilarious Adrienne Martini, a week or so ago and it inspired me to try knitting socks again. My first summer of knitting, about two years ago, I managed to work my way through a sock from the top-down, which was an unnerving project - what if I run out of yarn? what if they don't fit? OMG, WHAT AM I DOING!? Not a pleasant project. So for two years, I've had this skein of Harry Potter sock yarn in my stash, taunting me (particularly because I had to search high and low and across three states for the blasted thing). Using some mad Google skills, I located some tutorials (here and here and here for those interested) and cast on. A little over a week later, I've a sock! And it fits! No pictures, though... I'm trying to wait until I have them both done... It could be a while. 

Mmmm... a quilt top. It's so much better than the first one. The seams on this one (kinda) match up. This is a good thing, no? 

Okay. I feel better. Now to finish taxes, figure out why my data set is out of numerical order, and plan for tomorrow's class. Perhaps all of this can be done out in the sun, yes? 

The Morning After

I started rewriting last night. Not adding to the draft already in progress. Writing it anew, from page one. I like the paper better, think that it makes for a more concise argument about picture books, but the reality of starting the physical act of writing over... well, it just makes my head hurt.

But I have time to rewrite and while it is inconvenient for my travel plans, it is necessary for my development as an academic, this constant reworking of ideas and remapping of intellectual territory. It's good work - the process, not the paper. The value of that has yet to be proven.

Baby, it's cold outside

The semester isn't over yet, but it's ridiculously close. I've only two papers and a stack of grading between myself and non-required reading. That's it: two papers and grading. It feels overwhelming, as though it will never get done, but it will. It always does.

I'm trying not to freak out about programs of study, about transferring credits into my PhD from my master's work. I'm trying not to be annoyed with the fact that my driver's side door latch doesn't work and that I will need to drop Oscar off at the mechanic's in the morning. I'm trying to not to feel like I'm drowning. You've got to swim.

I'm trying to enjoy the first snowfalls of the season, stealing the occasional moments of quiet, clasping a hot mug of tea and enjoying the flurries outside. I'm trying to take those few minutes between one project and the next to wrap presents, address holiday cards, and engage in general holiday shenanigans. I'm trying to get back here, to writing, to help me take measure of the days that seem to be flying by.

In some of these endeavors, I am successful. In others, well, not so much. 'Tis the season.

Today I Broke

Nope, I'm not crying. At least not in this picture.

It's nearing the end of fall semester, third year in and I have yet to have cried over a professor's feedback. I've taken classes with some of the most difficult profs in my department, submitted papers where I was unsure of what I was doing, spelled out my ignorance about this topic and that with glaring clarity. And never once have I cried.

There has always been something to be learned, something I've done well enough to warrant revisiting the writing a second time. There's always been something redemptive about the feedback I've received from my professors, regardless of how crappily I laid out my argument or splotchy my literature. I've never had a professor tell me my writing is sloppy and nothing more.

Honestly, I don't quite know what to do here. Were the assignment something polished, rather than a working draft, I would understand the comment. But it is a working draft and while there are sections of the paper that are sloppy, I felt my epistemology and theoretical underpinnings were solid. I don't think I'm someone who needs coddling but I am here to learn. Nothing comes out of feedback that is meant to belittle and gives no direction for positive change. Teach me.

Today, I cried. Her feedback, my apparently sloppy writing, broke me. Today, after seven semesters, countless papers, and eleven sections of teaching, graduate school broke me. I'll mend but, for today, I just want to wallow.

The Summer, She is Finished

I am of the opinion that syllabuses (or syllabi, depending on your preference) are best introduced when accompanied by a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. As the instructor verbally outlines the work load of the semester, they give students something to munch on and, I would like to think, reduce the amount of stress they experience as I repeat, over and over, "late work is unacceptable and don't copy and paste off of the Internet. I have mad Google skills and will find you out."

I don't teach until four-thirty in the afternoon and have a seminar immediately before, which may work out to my advantage tomorrow. When I stopped at the School of Education this morning, the copier was refusing to make double-sided copies. The day before classes begin and the copier has decided to be moody. This is not good.

My advantage is this: I can drop off my syllabus, timeline, and phonics pretest at the copy center early in the morning and they should be done by the time class actually rolls around. I would go and make single-sided copies of all three pieces tonight but at seven pages each times twenty-four students, that's a lot of pages. (504 pages to be exact.) I'm trying not to be a tree killer.

But the syllabus is finished, so there is that to be thankful for. Not copied, but finished at least.

The Books! They Have Arrived!

The first box of books for this semester's classes arrived this morning. It doesn't look like $200 worth of books does it? Such a small stack and only representative of a portion of two classes.

I also need to start thinking about buying clothes, even though I have to giggle a bit at the thought of going school clothes shopping at the age of twenty-eight. Giggles aside, an inventory of my closet reveals I have very few articles that actually fit me after last fall's weight loss meaning that I need to invest some money in new trousers and shirts. Given the strict budget, I have to be more than thoughtful in color combinations and individual pieces, which has never been my strong point. Perhaps there is something of a list floating out there on the Internet: the neccessities of a guy's wardrobe.

Waning Days of Summer

I've been baking up a storm, slowly but surely working my way through the baking section of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. The latest project: cinnamon buns, which were stickily delicious and forced me to engage in an extra half-hour on the elliptical yesterday.

I'm procrastinating, wishing and hoping that a slew of baking will slow down the onset of the school year. I had my first "not prepared for the first day of school" dream last night, a reminder that yeast will make bread rise but will not make the hours pass any more slowly. I'm teaching two, taking four this semester, which may very well change before the end of the day. Two of the classes are in my minor, gender studies, while another is dissertation proposal preparation; the fourth is a class in online content analysis through our School of Library Science. When scheduling in the spring, I was counting on only teaching one section this term. With two, I'm unsure I can manage such a schedule and actually learn something in it. Online content analysis may be going to the wayside.

I'm looking forward to returning to teaching, despite the fact my syllabus has been chopped up into pieces. This will be the third year I've taught this class and finally feel like I have a grasp on how I want it to go, what I want to change to make it a better class for both my students and for myself as an instructor. I'm introducing a memoir project through which I hope to walk my students through both the writing workshop structure and process writing. I've mapped out concepts to be covered throughout the course of the year. I hope this will alleviate some of the pressure I feel to cover everything in the fall and then flounder a bit in the spring. I'm also hoping that this will more authentically connect assessment and methodology for my students. We shall see.

All of this, of course, relies on finishing actually writing the syllabus and then working through all of the assignment sheets and rubrics for grading. Syllabuses (just as correct as syllabi) are never simple and this current one just seems overwhelming...