My tongue in
English chains, I
return, after a generation, to you. I am at the end of my Dravidian tether, hunger for you
unassuaged, I falter, stumble.
(Parthasarathy, “rough passage”, l. 61-70)}.
Monday, October 31, 2005
intelligent design
Last night I "engineered" the perfect morning for today, down to the last detail of a plush towel on the floor to absorb shower moisture. I hate unexplained moisture.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Johnathan of Troy
Hilary: do you live here in the city?
Johnathan: I live and work in Troy.
Hilary: Sounds great: Living the dream...
Johnathan: Actually I have been kind of depressed lately.
Hilary (empathetically): Yeah. You live in the center of nowhere. Plus, you have the spiritual malaise because you know you are a tool of the man.
Johnathan: Acutally I'm pretty much in a good place with that. The problem is that I just got diagnosed with hypoglycemia.
borderline
Have started addressing myself as "Hilary"
and making encouraging follow-up remarks such as
"let's get it together here".
Friday, October 28, 2005
nothing to see here
just an average girl brushing her teeth and hair, praying, sleeping, breathing and trying to stay out of oncoming traffic.
my family
Sean. Said my mom. That sounds like a nice irish name. Is he irish?
pause. Um mom? I said. I think he's Black.
There are black irish, welsh, scottish. she matter of factly said.
Mostly Catholic, too, she added with a note of approval.
pause. Seriously though, said my mom. He is irish, right?
pause. Um mom? I said. I think he's Black.
There are black irish, welsh, scottish. she matter of factly said.
Mostly Catholic, too, she added with a note of approval.
pause. Seriously though, said my mom. He is irish, right?
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
for example
Last night when I dreamed, I dreamed about cauliflower. It was part of a stir fry. No one died.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
bad form
I crossed my arms, slank down in the fuzzy chair and scowled.
"You're not going to make me sign one of those humiliating behavioral contracts", I said.
No, she said. I'll tell you what I want to do, though. I want to make you sign a behavioral contract not to cross your arms, slink down in your chair and scowl. It is not conducive to productive dialogue.
Monday, October 24, 2005
getting dressed for school
This morning I caught a glance of my naked reflection prancing by the hallway mirror.
The shimmering eyes in the reflection glanced back.
Yes, I said patiently, yes, I see you. I haven't forgotten about you. I know that you are there.
You are young, I said flatly, lacing up my shoes. My eyes squinted into half-moons, and for a second the inside of me appeared in the mirror, old, grey, gentle and tired.
My palm touched the palm of the reflection. I wish I could send you off without me, I sighed and screwed my mouth into a scold: If I were young and had your figure.
The slender reflection laughed and tugged at its camisole. Frowning carefully, I matched the laces of my boots to the eyelets.
The shimmering eyes in the reflection glanced back.
Yes, I said patiently, yes, I see you. I haven't forgotten about you. I know that you are there.
You are young, I said flatly, lacing up my shoes. My eyes squinted into half-moons, and for a second the inside of me appeared in the mirror, old, grey, gentle and tired.
My palm touched the palm of the reflection. I wish I could send you off without me, I sighed and screwed my mouth into a scold: If I were young and had your figure.
The slender reflection laughed and tugged at its camisole. Frowning carefully, I matched the laces of my boots to the eyelets.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
reasons to teach comp. at a catholic college
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2001 05:57:36 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Hilary W." Add to Address Book
Subject: reasons to teach comp. at a Catholic college.
To: jrhall@tir.com
Jim,
You could say this about the danger of "sleepwalking" through spelling and grammar-check:
What if John Paul II accidentally declared the bl. Virgin Mary the "dominatrix" of the Catholic Church because autocorrect does not recognize "mediatrix"?
Realize--it is doctrinally infallible once he clicks 'ok'".
-Hilary
From: "Hilary W."
Subject: reasons to teach comp. at a Catholic college.
To: jrhall@tir.com
Jim,
You could say this about the danger of "sleepwalking" through spelling and grammar-check:
What if John Paul II accidentally declared the bl. Virgin Mary the "dominatrix" of the Catholic Church because autocorrect does not recognize "mediatrix"?
Realize--it is doctrinally infallible once he clicks 'ok'".
-Hilary
the process of aging
Have grown out of:
going out two nights in a row
dating more than 2 people at 1 time
teaching the MWF 8:30-10:30 section
showering with dish soap when my paycheck runs out
wiping my runny nose on my sleeve
alternately paying my electric, heat and water bills
going out two nights in a row
dating more than 2 people at 1 time
teaching the MWF 8:30-10:30 section
showering with dish soap when my paycheck runs out
wiping my runny nose on my sleeve
alternately paying my electric, heat and water bills
Friday, October 21, 2005
former tenants
I walked gingerly up to the washing machine
looked inside
but did not scream.
Okay, I said. Not a problem. Not a problem. Not a problem. Not a problem.
Then I threw up.
looked inside
but did not scream.
Okay, I said. Not a problem. Not a problem. Not a problem. Not a problem.
Then I threw up.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
grass stain
Sharon, I asked, pulling up a clump of grass and dirt and worms from the CCS lawn, um, do you, you know,like being human?
It's ok, she said. I mean, I don't wish I were a dandelion or anything. My PowerPoint presentation was hard enough as it is.
It's ok, she said. I mean, I don't wish I were a dandelion or anything. My PowerPoint presentation was hard enough as it is.
meanwhile, back on my mattress:
Late last night I dialed 1-800-CALL NEAL and watched the shadows of cockroaches sliding by my bed.
Monday, October 17, 2005
student-teacher-writers
In her review "Tenure and promotion in rhetoric and composition", Levenson (2000) gently critiques the applicability of the Boyer report:
"Several authors, Boyer most notably, make a case for changing institutional values in ways that would benefit compositionists whose professional work includes such things as teaching freshman composition, running writing programs, organizing community service and working with technology. However, few of these authors deal specifically with how to institute such a change, exept to make clear that the burden of proof rests on the untenured candidate to document why her unconventional work deserves to be valued"(p. 144).
Levenson goes on to list the "unconventional" scholarly work in which she engaged "exactly 1 year before I was denied tenure", noting that she has come to view her work with graduate students as "directly tied to my scholarly work, not a diversion from it" (p. 147).
The situation of untenured candidates is somewhat analogous to the thrills and perils of being a graduate TA: while the "work" of being a TA includes teaching freshman composition, running the writing center and developing an area of community involvement/service, "research" done by the TA is the only thing that counts as interesting in the wider institutional culture. I place "research" in quotation marks because the term, when taken alone, represents an abstract and problematic ideal: when does research EVER take place apart from teaching, program administration and community service? However, unlike untenured faculty, graduate students do not have graduate students to turn to for appreciation and relief (for we are graduate students).
Like untenured professors, graduate students need to find ways of teaching that complement, rather than distract from, the intellectual work of research. The task is different for us, though, in that freshman students are not graduate students. They lack "research" interests, or even, in alarming cases, interests:
student: But Miss Hilary, I don't know what my Assignment 2 will be ABOUT!
Hilary: Okay, well, tell me what you're interested in.
Student: I don't know. Stuff. Or nothing. I can't remember.
These "undisciplined" students are quintessntial distractions.
What follows below is a fantasy list of suggestions toward how graduate TAs can conduct research and writing through (rather than in spite of) the freshman composition course:
1. To answer the theoretical koan "what should be the topic and content of my English 1020 course): if you are still doing your coursework, the topic of your course should as closely related as possible to the topic(s) of your graduate seminars--with appropriate conceptual downshifting.
2. If you are finished with your coursework, the topic of your course should correspond with an aspect of your dissertation topic that you want to explore.
3. Similarly, "what should my students read": they should read what you are reading--with appropriate modifications. While anthologies like Text Book do support undergraduates in reading and responding to theoretical material, it is may be more appropriate to have students read and respond to primary texts that have to do with your seminar or dissertation topics.
4. The assignments in the course should closely relate to (or complement) the writing assignments that the graduate TA will encounter during the semester, and
5. Graduate TAs should "do" every writing task they assign along with the students, and
6. Graduate TAs should workshop their writing along with the students in peer review.
7. During the traditional conversation about "Teacher comments in English 1020: understanding, interpreting and responding to your teacher's evaluation", students should have a chance to "produce" teacher comments by commenting on a sample the graduate TAs written work-in-progress.
8. The above will both help students develop fluency in the language of "teacher comments" and learn to evaluate, as well as read and write, academic discourse.
Note: list (continuously) under construction.
"Several authors, Boyer most notably, make a case for changing institutional values in ways that would benefit compositionists whose professional work includes such things as teaching freshman composition, running writing programs, organizing community service and working with technology. However, few of these authors deal specifically with how to institute such a change, exept to make clear that the burden of proof rests on the untenured candidate to document why her unconventional work deserves to be valued"(p. 144).
Levenson goes on to list the "unconventional" scholarly work in which she engaged "exactly 1 year before I was denied tenure", noting that she has come to view her work with graduate students as "directly tied to my scholarly work, not a diversion from it" (p. 147).
The situation of untenured candidates is somewhat analogous to the thrills and perils of being a graduate TA: while the "work" of being a TA includes teaching freshman composition, running the writing center and developing an area of community involvement/service, "research" done by the TA is the only thing that counts as interesting in the wider institutional culture. I place "research" in quotation marks because the term, when taken alone, represents an abstract and problematic ideal: when does research EVER take place apart from teaching, program administration and community service? However, unlike untenured faculty, graduate students do not have graduate students to turn to for appreciation and relief (for we are graduate students).
Like untenured professors, graduate students need to find ways of teaching that complement, rather than distract from, the intellectual work of research. The task is different for us, though, in that freshman students are not graduate students. They lack "research" interests, or even, in alarming cases, interests:
student: But Miss Hilary, I don't know what my Assignment 2 will be ABOUT!
Hilary: Okay, well, tell me what you're interested in.
Student: I don't know. Stuff. Or nothing. I can't remember.
These "undisciplined" students are quintessntial distractions.
What follows below is a fantasy list of suggestions toward how graduate TAs can conduct research and writing through (rather than in spite of) the freshman composition course:
1. To answer the theoretical koan "what should be the topic and content of my English 1020 course): if you are still doing your coursework, the topic of your course should as closely related as possible to the topic(s) of your graduate seminars--with appropriate conceptual downshifting.
2. If you are finished with your coursework, the topic of your course should correspond with an aspect of your dissertation topic that you want to explore.
3. Similarly, "what should my students read": they should read what you are reading--with appropriate modifications. While anthologies like Text Book do support undergraduates in reading and responding to theoretical material, it is may be more appropriate to have students read and respond to primary texts that have to do with your seminar or dissertation topics.
4. The assignments in the course should closely relate to (or complement) the writing assignments that the graduate TA will encounter during the semester, and
5. Graduate TAs should "do" every writing task they assign along with the students, and
6. Graduate TAs should workshop their writing along with the students in peer review.
7. During the traditional conversation about "Teacher comments in English 1020: understanding, interpreting and responding to your teacher's evaluation", students should have a chance to "produce" teacher comments by commenting on a sample the graduate TAs written work-in-progress.
8. The above will both help students develop fluency in the language of "teacher comments" and learn to evaluate, as well as read and write, academic discourse.
Note: list (continuously) under construction.
spark: a novel about welding safety (post for 8050).
"And that's the problem, particilarly for our graduate students: the discipline thinks its going from literature to culture, and the market tells us we're going from literature to technical writing" (O'Dair, p. 47).
For those of us who have already gone "from literature to technical writing", this is extremely reassuring news: we are going with the flow of the academic job market while the literary scholars, well, deconstruct themselves. However, O'Dair concludes that graduate students should not be prepared to "obtain tenurable positions" by reading Piers Plowman; rather, the academic job market "would likely improve by sticking to technical writing" (47).
This assumption--that literature and technical writing are intrinsically different--makes me cringe: and not with indignance at literary scholars for dogging the gritty industrial/orginizational focus of tech comm. Here, I would rather argue the assumption literature and technical writing are different is responsible for a lot of lame, bad and humanistically shady traditions in technical writing. In contrast, some of the most exemplary--ie, intelligeable, searchable and useable--peices of technical writing are exuberantly literary.
For wildly successful examples of "literary" technical communication, check out:
Angell Daie's "The English Secretorie", a secretarial manual that is written in the form of an epistolary novel. Marginal glosses transform the novel into a searchable textbook on professional writing.
Dyer's "the fleece", a diagnostic poem about diseases of the sheep. The poetic form allows for frighteningly vivid descriptions:
That dire distemper sometimes may the swain,
Though late, discern; when, on the lifted lid,
Or visual orb, the turgid veins are pale;
The swelling liver then her putrid store
Begins to drink: ev'n yet thy skill exert,
280 Nor suffer weak despair to fold thy arms:
Again detersive salt apply, or shed
The hoary med'cine o'er their arid food.
The Kama Sutra, an intricately diagrammed web of process descriptions about how to have sex, employs narrative to annotate and clarify the diagrams:
"Imagine..In his garden there are two swings, one revolving and one ordinary. Now sometimes, alone, he switches from one to the other until his head spins. But his favourite swing has neither ropes, nor wood, nor cushions" ("The Swing).
This narrative draws on the literary figure of analogy to clarify a complex sequence of actions. (Note: The narrative style of the Kama Sutra is brilliantly parodied in Christopher Moore's novel, "Lamb").
Here is a more contemporary example example of creative nonfiction in tech comm: Planned Parenthood's "STD petting zoo", an interactive cartoon about sexually transmitted diseases.
Taking these examples as a starting point, O'Dair's claim that graduate students are not getting anywhere with Langland's Piers Plowman becomes harder to evaluate. Like many technical communicators, Langland realized that people pay attention to abstract concepts when you draw smiley faces on and make up stories about them. Conceptually speaking, the structure and function of the soul (as described by Medieval scholars on the Greek New Testament) is as complex and "technical" as the parts of an amoeba. The anthropomorposized "parts of the soul" in Piers are created to help readers grasp and therefore modify the content of their souls. For example, the anthropomorphosized "Vices" in Piers--
And then came Covetousness · I can him not describe,
So hungry and hollow · Sir Harvey him looked.
He was beetle-browed · and blubber-lipped too,
With two bleared eyes · as a blind hog;
--are an analogous textual ancestor of the lively, anthropomorphosized STDs in Planned Parenthood's STD Petting Zoo.
In summary, Piers Plowman may have more to tell O'Dair's graduate students about technical and professional writing than she realizes. For example, that human readers are better able to grasp abstract concepts when they are presented as "characters" and explanations when they follow the structure of a story.
Those graduate students who can read Piers Plowman and apply Langland's anthropomorphic style of depicting "Vices" on the stage to (say) a better design for "idiot lights" on a dashboard might be the first ones to obtain tenurable positions on the academic job market.
For those of us who have already gone "from literature to technical writing", this is extremely reassuring news: we are going with the flow of the academic job market while the literary scholars, well, deconstruct themselves. However, O'Dair concludes that graduate students should not be prepared to "obtain tenurable positions" by reading Piers Plowman; rather, the academic job market "would likely improve by sticking to technical writing" (47).
This assumption--that literature and technical writing are intrinsically different--makes me cringe: and not with indignance at literary scholars for dogging the gritty industrial/orginizational focus of tech comm. Here, I would rather argue the assumption literature and technical writing are different is responsible for a lot of lame, bad and humanistically shady traditions in technical writing. In contrast, some of the most exemplary--ie, intelligeable, searchable and useable--peices of technical writing are exuberantly literary.
For wildly successful examples of "literary" technical communication, check out:
Angell Daie's "The English Secretorie", a secretarial manual that is written in the form of an epistolary novel. Marginal glosses transform the novel into a searchable textbook on professional writing.
Dyer's "the fleece", a diagnostic poem about diseases of the sheep. The poetic form allows for frighteningly vivid descriptions:
That dire distemper sometimes may the swain,
Though late, discern; when, on the lifted lid,
Or visual orb, the turgid veins are pale;
The swelling liver then her putrid store
Begins to drink: ev'n yet thy skill exert,
280 Nor suffer weak despair to fold thy arms:
Again detersive salt apply, or shed
The hoary med'cine o'er their arid food.
The Kama Sutra, an intricately diagrammed web of process descriptions about how to have sex, employs narrative to annotate and clarify the diagrams:
"Imagine..In his garden there are two swings, one revolving and one ordinary. Now sometimes, alone, he switches from one to the other until his head spins. But his favourite swing has neither ropes, nor wood, nor cushions" ("The Swing).
This narrative draws on the literary figure of analogy to clarify a complex sequence of actions. (Note: The narrative style of the Kama Sutra is brilliantly parodied in Christopher Moore's novel, "Lamb").
Here is a more contemporary example example of creative nonfiction in tech comm: Planned Parenthood's "STD petting zoo", an interactive cartoon about sexually transmitted diseases.
Taking these examples as a starting point, O'Dair's claim that graduate students are not getting anywhere with Langland's Piers Plowman becomes harder to evaluate. Like many technical communicators, Langland realized that people pay attention to abstract concepts when you draw smiley faces on and make up stories about them. Conceptually speaking, the structure and function of the soul (as described by Medieval scholars on the Greek New Testament) is as complex and "technical" as the parts of an amoeba. The anthropomorposized "parts of the soul" in Piers are created to help readers grasp and therefore modify the content of their souls. For example, the anthropomorphosized "Vices" in Piers--
And then came Covetousness · I can him not describe,
So hungry and hollow · Sir Harvey him looked.
He was beetle-browed · and blubber-lipped too,
With two bleared eyes · as a blind hog;
--are an analogous textual ancestor of the lively, anthropomorphosized STDs in Planned Parenthood's STD Petting Zoo.
In summary, Piers Plowman may have more to tell O'Dair's graduate students about technical and professional writing than she realizes. For example, that human readers are better able to grasp abstract concepts when they are presented as "characters" and explanations when they follow the structure of a story.
Those graduate students who can read Piers Plowman and apply Langland's anthropomorphic style of depicting "Vices" on the stage to (say) a better design for "idiot lights" on a dashboard might be the first ones to obtain tenurable positions on the academic job market.
From where we're standing, you look ghetto (post for 8050).
The final page of Scholes' The Rise and Fall Of English turned with an unintentional slap of reality:
“But when professors became philologists, scholars, or literary critics, they deeply resented helping students with a prose that was neither literature nor anything else, but just “composition” –just as students resented and resisted learning a kind of writing that seemed to have no function beyond school” (p. 190).
Like Bonhoeffer, who got so innured to dungeon life that that he forgot about his imprisonment in Flossenburg "for weeks at a time", I blithely forgot about my own confinement:
“This {production} is the part of English that is usually put beyond the pale--as “creative” writing-- or down in the dungeon--as "composition" (p. 159).
Therefore, sentences like this one had to be read and reread for meaning:
“The useful, the practical, and even the intelligeable were relegated to composition” (p. 35).
Waaaaait a second, I thought. We're the ones who do the "relegating" around here! Why just the other day Sharon's student brought in his big dumb deconstruction book, and she calmly said,
"nooow, if you want to use that in your literature courses, that's perfectly fine.
Yeah. She relegated his head straight".
What even well-intentioned and perspicuous literary scholars liek Scholes fail to realize is that, like most indigenous peoples, composition scholars are not pressing our noses against the stained glass waiting to be "discovered":
“What I finally realized was that English departments need composition as the “other” of literature in order to function as they have functioned” (p. 35).
The above sentence is at once heartwarming and insulting. We built this department 1 syllogism at a time so you could have a place to deconstruct stuff (or whatever): You've finally noticed us?
On a second reading, I came to immensely appreciate Scholes' move toward a rapproachement. Still, though, scholars within the fields of composition, rhetoric and technical communication should remain critical of "integrationist" claims such as this one:
“Under this sign, there is no difference between the theory of composition and the theory of literature” (p. 36).
As Malcolm X points out, anyone who has been systematically enslaved should be critical of steps toward "integration", especially of integration initiated by the people who were doing the enslaving:
"Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "We shall overcome ... Suum Day.. ." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against ?The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every op pressed people in the world: the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, ... Cuba - yes Cuba too" ("El-Hajj Malik-Shabazz", p. 456).
For composition scholars, the danger of overarching alliances with literary scholars "is not a case of wanting either separation or integration.The use of these words actually clouds the real picture" (Malcolm X, "missing page numbers"). Rather, any initiative from within literary studies to disolve the disciplinary boundary between comp. and literature presents the risk of subsuming composition into a power structure that swears that, with our dedicated help, it can stop being exploitative.
“But when professors became philologists, scholars, or literary critics, they deeply resented helping students with a prose that was neither literature nor anything else, but just “composition” –just as students resented and resisted learning a kind of writing that seemed to have no function beyond school” (p. 190).
Like Bonhoeffer, who got so innured to dungeon life that that he forgot about his imprisonment in Flossenburg "for weeks at a time", I blithely forgot about my own confinement:
“This {production} is the part of English that is usually put beyond the pale--as “creative” writing-- or down in the dungeon--as "composition" (p. 159).
Therefore, sentences like this one had to be read and reread for meaning:
“The useful, the practical, and even the intelligeable were relegated to composition” (p. 35).
Waaaaait a second, I thought. We're the ones who do the "relegating" around here! Why just the other day Sharon's student brought in his big dumb deconstruction book, and she calmly said,
"nooow, if you want to use that in your literature courses, that's perfectly fine.
Yeah. She relegated his head straight".
What even well-intentioned and perspicuous literary scholars liek Scholes fail to realize is that, like most indigenous peoples, composition scholars are not pressing our noses against the stained glass waiting to be "discovered":
“What I finally realized was that English departments need composition as the “other” of literature in order to function as they have functioned” (p. 35).
The above sentence is at once heartwarming and insulting. We built this department 1 syllogism at a time so you could have a place to deconstruct stuff (or whatever): You've finally noticed us?
On a second reading, I came to immensely appreciate Scholes' move toward a rapproachement. Still, though, scholars within the fields of composition, rhetoric and technical communication should remain critical of "integrationist" claims such as this one:
“Under this sign, there is no difference between the theory of composition and the theory of literature” (p. 36).
As Malcolm X points out, anyone who has been systematically enslaved should be critical of steps toward "integration", especially of integration initiated by the people who were doing the enslaving:
"Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "We shall overcome ... Suum Day.. ." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against ?The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every op pressed people in the world: the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, ... Cuba - yes Cuba too" ("El-Hajj Malik-Shabazz", p. 456).
For composition scholars, the danger of overarching alliances with literary scholars "is not a case of wanting either separation or integration.The use of these words actually clouds the real picture" (Malcolm X, "missing page numbers"). Rather, any initiative from within literary studies to disolve the disciplinary boundary between comp. and literature presents the risk of subsuming composition into a power structure that swears that, with our dedicated help, it can stop being exploitative.
in my entire life
I have never been as happy as I am now.
Note: it took me 3, 316 words to say that.
Note: it took me 3, 316 words to say that.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
word count
2, 265 : word count of textbook review
2, 460 : word count of blog posts written while avoiding textbook review.
6, 230 : word count of emails written while avoiding textbook review.
2, 460 : word count of blog posts written while avoiding textbook review.
6, 230 : word count of emails written while avoiding textbook review.
meanwhile: back on my mattress
The South Park dreams where name deleted dies due to my negligence are starting to incorporate elements of dramatic irony.
For example :
In last night's dream, I applied for the job of Angel of Death; my application test was to bring name deleted home to the Lord God.
I knocked self-consciously on Name Deleted's door.
"Hilary?" said name deleted, looking very surpised. "Ok. Where...is...Jesus?"
"Oh. Jesus is resting:", I said perkily, "I will be your shepherd for today".
For example :
In last night's dream, I applied for the job of Angel of Death; my application test was to bring name deleted home to the Lord God.
I knocked self-consciously on Name Deleted's door.
"Hilary?" said name deleted, looking very surpised. "Ok. Where...is...Jesus?"
"Oh. Jesus is resting:", I said perkily, "I will be your shepherd for today".
Saturday, October 15, 2005
look at me
i am an innocent textbook and my name is (insert name).
accept me as your personal savoir and your class will structure itself
your papers will grade themselves
and your students will critically frame themselves (not the structure and content of your course).
Le départ de cette réflexion était le plus souvent un sentiment d'impatience devant le `naturel' dont la presse, l'art, le sens commun affublent sans cesse une réalité qui, pour être celle dans laquelle nous vivons, n'en est pas moins parfaitement historique: en un mot, je souffrais de voir à tout moment confondues dans le récit de notre actualité, Nature et Histoire, et je voulais ressaisir dans l'exposition décorative de ce-qui-va-de-soi, l'abus idéologique qui, à mon sens, s'y trouve caché. (Barthes: 1970 p.9)
In “Joining the conversation” (Rhetoric review, 1994, p. 175), an anonymous scholar named TS criticizes the “inaccessible language” of scholarly writing in Rhet/Comp. Granted, all readers in a specialized field should expect to encounter “technical terms” and “specialized language”. However, the author holds scholars in rhetoric and composition to an especially high standard of writing: “I expect (naively) that people who teach composition will write well” (p. 183). The article concludes that the choice to produce crappy writing is "politically motivated".
Taking as a starting point Barthes' claim that "when cultural discourses hide their motivation, they transform “history into nature” (1972, p. 129), my textbook review emhasizes a reciprocal problem: the "nonacademic" pattern of evidence and self-justification in writing textbooks is also politically motivated, in that, by concealing theory (frequently through first-person narrative) writing texbooks naturalize certain theories about reading, writing and community action.
Note:
accept me as your personal savoir and your class will structure itself
your papers will grade themselves
and your students will critically frame themselves (not the structure and content of your course).
Le départ de cette réflexion était le plus souvent un sentiment d'impatience devant le `naturel' dont la presse, l'art, le sens commun affublent sans cesse une réalité qui, pour être celle dans laquelle nous vivons, n'en est pas moins parfaitement historique: en un mot, je souffrais de voir à tout moment confondues dans le récit de notre actualité, Nature et Histoire, et je voulais ressaisir dans l'exposition décorative de ce-qui-va-de-soi, l'abus idéologique qui, à mon sens, s'y trouve caché. (Barthes: 1970 p.9)
In “Joining the conversation” (Rhetoric review, 1994, p. 175), an anonymous scholar named TS criticizes the “inaccessible language” of scholarly writing in Rhet/Comp. Granted, all readers in a specialized field should expect to encounter “technical terms” and “specialized language”. However, the author holds scholars in rhetoric and composition to an especially high standard of writing: “I expect (naively) that people who teach composition will write well” (p. 183). The article concludes that the choice to produce crappy writing is "politically motivated".
Taking as a starting point Barthes' claim that "when cultural discourses hide their motivation, they transform “history into nature” (1972, p. 129), my textbook review emhasizes a reciprocal problem: the "nonacademic" pattern of evidence and self-justification in writing textbooks is also politically motivated, in that, by concealing theory (frequently through first-person narrative) writing texbooks naturalize certain theories about reading, writing and community action.
Note:
"Natural" order
Is the information in Writing in a Visual Age as “easy to find” as promised? To answer this question, I attempted to use the text to answer a question about how to approach a writing task for “another college course”. Specifically, I tried to use the text to determine how to develop an overarching theme for my textbook review. Since “reviews” are not included as a form of academic writing, I first had to determine whether my review is more like an “evaluation” (p.262) or a “report” as a form of college writing how do I develop an overarching theme in a review? (p. 103). According to the text, evaluations are evaluative: “Is the thing—a product, for example, or an idea, a movie or a policy—good or bad?” (p.262). Evaluations answer an overarching question of value such as “is the thing as good as it promises” by comparing the thing to a set “source of criteria” (p.263); while positive and negative textbook reviews do exist, most reviews in composition in rhetoric (such as Rader’s review of Composition, Visual Culture and Problems of Class in College English and Prensky’s “Escape from the planet jar-gon” in (cite) are descriptive and exploratory, and tend to reserve judgment. Evaluation section covers questions of value and criteria. If my review is a report, however, it should convey “information that readers will find accurate, credible and reasonable comprehensive” (103): a report writer might identify a number of “themes” (p.160) but this section contains no discussion of how to develop an overarching idea. In practice, the color-coded boxes are difficult to search out of context: the boxes (which occur “throughout” each chapter) are not indexed; I have trouble determining if the task of “developing a controlling idea” is a strategy (green box) or a practical step (yellow box), and even if I could, the yellow and green colors are similar enough that it is hard to visually discriminate between the two categories of boxes. In the evaluative language of an evaluation, the "intuitive" mapping is not always "as good as it promises".
Had To Do It
Everyone else is.....
Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
My line:
Time going to go serenely gnaw my pita.
Comments
Ironic in light of newly diagnosed wheat allergy. Pitas: The Silent Killer.
Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
My line:
Time going to go serenely gnaw my pita.
Comments
Ironic in light of newly diagnosed wheat allergy. Pitas: The Silent Killer.
Friday, October 14, 2005
about her
one morning, name deleted must have noticed that the open office door makes you more vulnerable than sleep.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
more autistic strippers
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i08/08a01001.htm
Relieved by explanation
Dawn Prince-Hughes took a different approach to her diagnosis of autism five years ago at age 36. The adjunct professor of anthropology at Western Washington University says she was relieved to have a name for her differences. It allowed her to explain to others why she isn't any good at small talk and why, when she
enters a room, she looks at everything, not just the people.
Ms. Prince-Hughes says that despite her difficulties, her colleagues know she has something unique to offer. In fact, she says, having autism makes her a better anthropologist. Social norms that most people take for granted never came naturally for her, so she can see things with a different eye, an advantage in her line of work.
She wasn't always so at ease. As a student, she says, she never fit in, and dropped out of high school when she was a sophomore. She was homeless for five years and worked as an exotic dancer for three. A visit to the zoo changed everything. Ms. Prince-Hughes observed the gorillas, and they taught her how to
connect with others, she says, something she hadn't previously understood. The gorillas became the subject of her college studies and her professional research. Last year she published a memoir.
Relieved by explanation
Dawn Prince-Hughes took a different approach to her diagnosis of autism five years ago at age 36. The adjunct professor of anthropology at Western Washington University says she was relieved to have a name for her differences. It allowed her to explain to others why she isn't any good at small talk and why, when she
enters a room, she looks at everything, not just the people.
Ms. Prince-Hughes says that despite her difficulties, her colleagues know she has something unique to offer. In fact, she says, having autism makes her a better anthropologist. Social norms that most people take for granted never came naturally for her, so she can see things with a different eye, an advantage in her line of work.
She wasn't always so at ease. As a student, she says, she never fit in, and dropped out of high school when she was a sophomore. She was homeless for five years and worked as an exotic dancer for three. A visit to the zoo changed everything. Ms. Prince-Hughes observed the gorillas, and they taught her how to
connect with others, she says, something she hadn't previously understood. The gorillas became the subject of her college studies and her professional research. Last year she published a memoir.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
genre moves of a "generic" book review
1. Contextualization (incl. if and how the text "contextualizes" itself).
2. Rationale
3. Scope of the text.
4. Structure and content of the selections.
5. Paratextual content (preface, minipreviews, in-text commentary).
6. Activities and assignments (blends into 4).
7. Conclusion (freq. includes a statement about new directions for writing textbooks).
2. Rationale
3. Scope of the text.
4. Structure and content of the selections.
5. Paratextual content (preface, minipreviews, in-text commentary).
6. Activities and assignments (blends into 4).
7. Conclusion (freq. includes a statement about new directions for writing textbooks).
show me on your hands where the pita touched you
doctor: just the patches on your palms and abdomen now?
doctor: I see. do you have abdominal pain and swelling when you have the rash?
doctor: when you noice that the rash gets better, is that connected to any particular changes in eating habits, environment, lifestyle?
doctor: when the rash gets better, does the abdominal pain and swelling subside too, or--
Hilary: what are you getting at?
Hilary: Are you trying to say that imply that I am--
Hilary: WHOA, let's not jump to any conclusions here.
doctor: I see. do you have abdominal pain and swelling when you have the rash?
doctor: when you noice that the rash gets better, is that connected to any particular changes in eating habits, environment, lifestyle?
doctor: when the rash gets better, does the abdominal pain and swelling subside too, or--
Hilary: what are you getting at?
Hilary: Are you trying to say that imply that I am--
Hilary: WHOA, let's not jump to any conclusions here.
best inscription for a book review
from "clear night" :
And the castor beans, with their little earrings of death, say "What?" to me.
And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark.
And the gears notch and the engines wheel.
And the castor beans, with their little earrings of death, say "What?" to me.
And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark.
And the gears notch and the engines wheel.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
best opening line
"Guns, knives, chainsaws, syringes, rope and blunt objects serve many diverse legitimate purposes" (Gates, p. 65).
and I can remember being
the impossible object of mercy, exactly five minutes too late and just when I had settled into the reassuring inequity that comes with human life.
for Shashi
"But there was a dramatic shift in my street relationships when Howard, the boys, and I were finishing renovations on the apartment. That whole week, no body hit on us for money. Instead, panhandlers grinned and nodded when they passed them during errands and lunch breaks, as though we were old comrades. Maybe they only solicit suburban communters, I thought, and now recognize us as neighbors. Then I realized how we were dressed: paint-splattered t shirts, sweaty kercheifs, shoes covered with sawdust and spakle. Crash's work outfit was truly special--Howard had grabbed a pair of old sweats from the Goodwill pile in Connecticut and didn't discover the cord was missing till he put them on in NY. We searched the vacant apartment for a peice of string or elastic, but all we came up with from work supplies was a roll of duct tape. Even the crazies panhandlers weren't tempted to solicit change for a guy wearing a cumberbund of silver duct tape" (Random essay in City Life, p.35).
So there. Now give me five dollars.
So there. Now give me five dollars.
"mercy"
"is the antidote for the crushing pain that invariably follows the loss of innocence". Blakely.
meet: my crushes
Meet:
crush #1.
A graduate student (boy).
crush #2.
A graduate student (girl).
crush #3.
A graduate student (boy).
Crush #4.
Girl wearing a hat.
Crush #5.
Man in blue slacks.
Crush #6.
Cheryl.
crush #1.
A graduate student (boy).
crush #2.
A graduate student (girl).
crush #3.
A graduate student (boy).
Crush #4.
Girl wearing a hat.
Crush #5.
Man in blue slacks.
Crush #6.
Cheryl.
Monday, October 10, 2005
wish list
Today I want:
my soft 3/4 sweater from age 16
20 minutes of face to face attention (note: will play role of "listener" in exchange for attention).
my soft 3/4 sweater from age 16
20 minutes of face to face attention (note: will play role of "listener" in exchange for attention).
everything is illuminated:
The bright side of being in jail is that you finally have time to call DTE.
forms of life
a pita withering in the heat/
people taking on the characteristics of the buildings they lean against.
people taking on the characteristics of the buildings they lean against.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
art of indirection
>excerpted from timetable for Friday, October 7
5-7 pm.
Finish "embodying tec--" tekn-- ok, fine, Datacloud.
5-7 pm.
Finish "embodying tec--" tekn-- ok, fine, Datacloud.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
getting it from both sides
last night my two best friends got really mad at me and yelled. One of was them mad at me for being too smart and the other one was mad at me for being too dumb.
dumbest advice ever
"Avoid sudden changes in temperature or humidity". National Eczema Foundation, tips for avoiding flare-ups.
patches of eczema: 1 (note: "patch" covers entire body)
patches of eczema: 1 (note: "patch" covers entire body)
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
science fair project: findings
Total time spent "responding to student writing":
175 minutes
Time spent on task ("extreme grading"):
75 minutes
Average time spent responding to 1 draft: 6.9 min.
Total "negative" or off-task time:
100 minutes
Findings:
Teachers of writing frequently express concern about spending a "normal" amount of time responding to student writing. Most trequently, that time is measured in number of minutes/draft.
However, these findings show that more than half of the overall grading time is spent on off-task activities such as checking email, getting coffee and updating a blog. Therefore, to effectively limit time spent on student writing, teacher should focus on limiting the number of minutes between drafts rather than the number of limits spent responding to each draft.
175 minutes
Time spent on task ("extreme grading"):
75 minutes
Average time spent responding to 1 draft: 6.9 min.
Total "negative" or off-task time:
100 minutes
Findings:
Teachers of writing frequently express concern about spending a "normal" amount of time responding to student writing. Most trequently, that time is measured in number of minutes/draft.
However, these findings show that more than half of the overall grading time is spent on off-task activities such as checking email, getting coffee and updating a blog. Therefore, to effectively limit time spent on student writing, teacher should focus on limiting the number of minutes between drafts rather than the number of limits spent responding to each draft.
science fair project: data collection
Research question: what's a normal time frame for responding to students' written work?
In the interest of science, here is my response time log for 10 drafts of Assignment 1:
Draft 1:
1:26 pm-1:37 pm (10 min).
Note: Talked to K. Lacey about exhibitionist nature of blogging while calculating draft grade.
Draft 2
1:40-1:47.4 (7.5 min)
Note: Kim made me a champion bracelet for beating above response time record. How she made the bracelet is, telling me I could take the sleeve off her coffee and wear it. Am blinging.
Draft 3
1:52-2:00 (8 min)
Note: appended files contribute to slow response time.
Draft 4
2:05-2:12 (7 min)
Note: Nicole's story about 2 girls washing their feet in the Writing Center bathroom sink looped surreally over my written comments.
Draft 5
2:17-2:23.5 (6.5 min)
Note: Have effectively turned task of responding to student writing into a computer game
Draft 6
2:29-2:36 (7 min)
Note: Faint background noise
"milkshake"
"feet!"
"DIA"
Am lost in super mario comment land.
got dizzy and lay down
2:36 pm to 3:23 pm
(normal for me with hypnotic experiences)
Drafts 7 and 8 (back to back)
3:27pm -3:43pm (15 min)
4:02
Exquisitely beautiful girl enters Writing Center: grading stops
Hilary finds inner strenght for peer tutoring
Draft 9
4:04-4:12 (8 min)
He thought that if he just kept looking at you, an appointment on Friday would open up.
Draft 10
4:15-4:21 (6 min)
computers+writing=Bad News
In the interest of science, here is my response time log for 10 drafts of Assignment 1:
Draft 1:
1:26 pm-1:37 pm (10 min).
Note: Talked to K. Lacey about exhibitionist nature of blogging while calculating draft grade.
Draft 2
1:40-1:47.4 (7.5 min)
Note: Kim made me a champion bracelet for beating above response time record. How she made the bracelet is, telling me I could take the sleeve off her coffee and wear it. Am blinging.
Draft 3
1:52-2:00 (8 min)
Note: appended files contribute to slow response time.
Draft 4
2:05-2:12 (7 min)
Note: Nicole's story about 2 girls washing their feet in the Writing Center bathroom sink looped surreally over my written comments.
Draft 5
2:17-2:23.5 (6.5 min)
Note: Have effectively turned task of responding to student writing into a computer game
Draft 6
2:29-2:36 (7 min)
Note: Faint background noise
"milkshake"
"feet!"
"DIA"
Am lost in super mario comment land.
got dizzy and lay down
2:36 pm to 3:23 pm
(normal for me with hypnotic experiences)
Drafts 7 and 8 (back to back)
3:27pm -3:43pm (15 min)
4:02
Exquisitely beautiful girl enters Writing Center: grading stops
Hilary finds inner strenght for peer tutoring
Draft 9
4:04-4:12 (8 min)
He thought that if he just kept looking at you, an appointment on Friday would open up.
Draft 10
4:15-4:21 (6 min)
computers+writing=Bad News
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
thinness
is boring.
having 5 lbs to lose is far more interesting, like trying to save the earth from a giant asteroid.
having 5 lbs to lose is far more interesting, like trying to save the earth from a giant asteroid.
Monday, October 03, 2005
tree of reasoning
Name deleted breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I see: name deleted is like a giant redwood tree, the largest collective organism on earth. Yeah. You can quote me on that on your blog. Tell them name deleted said that".
Sunday, October 02, 2005
empathizing
With my sense of academic disconnectedness, Johndan replies: “this divide is part of why I’ve moved out of both tech comm and rhet/comp; my experiences were similar to yours”.
On a brighter note, he welcomes the “recent move in rhet/comp to begin working on a lot of the issues that tech comm has been dealing with for decades—service learning, usability, media, etc”. However, rhet/comp has made this move “without acknowledging the fact that their colleagues in tech comm have been studying this work for some time (or, in some cases, simply using that work but not acknowledging it)”.
For now, Johndan encourages me to continue to approach the discipline of rhet/comp through the sub-discipline of Computers and Writing: “since much of the work in C&W could be characterized as also tech comm work, it’s become sort of a back door into rhet/comp for people who are primarily in tech comm.”. More informally, he advises me to stick around and “hope things change”:
I’m not really involved in either field in a substantial way any longer, so it’s possible that there’s been some progress since I dropped out.
After all, Johndan is my kind of academic and professional hero: an incredibly successful dropout.
On a brighter note, he welcomes the “recent move in rhet/comp to begin working on a lot of the issues that tech comm has been dealing with for decades—service learning, usability, media, etc”. However, rhet/comp has made this move “without acknowledging the fact that their colleagues in tech comm have been studying this work for some time (or, in some cases, simply using that work but not acknowledging it)”.
For now, Johndan encourages me to continue to approach the discipline of rhet/comp through the sub-discipline of Computers and Writing: “since much of the work in C&W could be characterized as also tech comm work, it’s become sort of a back door into rhet/comp for people who are primarily in tech comm.”. More informally, he advises me to stick around and “hope things change”:
I’m not really involved in either field in a substantial way any longer, so it’s possible that there’s been some progress since I dropped out.
After all, Johndan is my kind of academic and professional hero: an incredibly successful dropout.
office hours
From friend's email (appended to picture):
hilary,
does the lopsided office hour card signify something about you? Do you
feel like a misfit in the department? Or is it a statement of defiance?
Slightly off kilter these days?
Saturday, October 01, 2005
spark: a novel about electron transport
"And that's the problem, particilarly for our graduate students: the discipline thinks its going from literature to culture, and the market tells us we're going from literature to technical writing" (O'Dair, p. 47).
For those of us who have already gone "from literature to technical writing", this is extremely reassuring news: we are going with the flow of the academic job market while the literary scholars, well, deconstruct themselves. However, O'Dair concludes that graduate students should not be prepared to "obtain tenurable positions" by reading Piers Plowman; rather, the academic job market "would likely improve by sticking to technical writing" (47).
This assumption--that literature and technical writing are intrinsically different--makes me cringe: and not with indignance at literary scholars for dogging the gritty industrial/orginizational focus of tech comm. Here, I would rather argue the assumption literature and technical writing are different is responsible for a lot of lame, bad and humanistically shady traditions in technical writing. In contrast, some of the most exemplary--ie, intelligeable, searchable and useable--peices of technical writing are exuberantly literary.
For wildly successful examples of "literary" technical communication, check out:
Angell Daie's "The English Secretorie", a secretarial manual that is written in the form of an epistolary novel. Marginal glosses transform the novel into a searchable textbook on professional writing.
Dyer's "the fleece", a diagnostic poem about diseases of the sheep. The poetic form allows for frighteningly vivid descriptions:
That dire distemper sometimes may the swain,
Though late, discern; when, on the lifted lid,
Or visual orb, the turgid veins are pale;
The swelling liver then her putrid store
Begins to drink: ev'n yet thy skill exert,
280 Nor suffer weak despair to fold thy arms:
Again detersive salt apply, or shed
The hoary med'cine o'er their arid food.
The Kama Sutra, an intricately diagrammed web of process descriptions about how to have sex, employs narrative to annotate and clarify the diagrams:
"Imagine..In his garden there are two swings, one revolving and one ordinary. Now sometimes, alone, he switches from one to the other until his head spins. But his favourite swing has neither ropes, nor wood, nor cushions" ("The Swing).
This narrative draws on the literary figure of analogy to clarify a complex sequence of actions. (Note: The narrative style of the Kama Sutra is brilliantly parodied in Christopher Moore's novel, "Lamb").
Here is a more contemporary example example of creative nonfiction in tech comm: Planned Parenthood's "STD petting zoo", an interactive cartoon about sexually transmitted diseases.
Taking these examples as a starting point, O'Dair's claim that graduate students are not getting anywhere with Langland's Piers Plowman becomes harder to evaluate. Like many technical communicators, Langland realized that people pay attention to abstract concepts when you draw smiley faces on and make up stories about them. Conceptually speaking, the structure and function of the soul (as described by Medieval scholars on the Greek New Testament) is as complex and "technical" as the parts of an amoeba. The anthropomorposized "parts of the soul" in Piers are created to help readers grasp and therefore modify the content of their souls. For example, the anthropomorphosized "Vices" in Piers--
And then came Covetousness · I can him not describe,
So hungry and hollow · Sir Harvey him looked.
He was beetle-browed · and blubber-lipped too,
With two bleared eyes · as a blind hog;
--are an analogous textual ancestor of the lively, anthropomorphosized STDs in Planned Parenthood's STD Petting Zoo.
In summary, Piers Plowman may have more to tell O'Dair's graduate students about technical and professional writing than she realizes. For example, that human readers are better able to grasp abstract concepts when they are presented as "characters" and explanations when they follow the structure of a story.
Those graduate students who can read Piers Plowman and apply Langland's anthropomorphic style of depicting "Vices" on the stage to (say) a better design for "idiot lights" on a dashboard might be the first ones to obtain tenurable positions on the academic job market.
For those of us who have already gone "from literature to technical writing", this is extremely reassuring news: we are going with the flow of the academic job market while the literary scholars, well, deconstruct themselves. However, O'Dair concludes that graduate students should not be prepared to "obtain tenurable positions" by reading Piers Plowman; rather, the academic job market "would likely improve by sticking to technical writing" (47).
This assumption--that literature and technical writing are intrinsically different--makes me cringe: and not with indignance at literary scholars for dogging the gritty industrial/orginizational focus of tech comm. Here, I would rather argue the assumption literature and technical writing are different is responsible for a lot of lame, bad and humanistically shady traditions in technical writing. In contrast, some of the most exemplary--ie, intelligeable, searchable and useable--peices of technical writing are exuberantly literary.
For wildly successful examples of "literary" technical communication, check out:
Angell Daie's "The English Secretorie", a secretarial manual that is written in the form of an epistolary novel. Marginal glosses transform the novel into a searchable textbook on professional writing.
Dyer's "the fleece", a diagnostic poem about diseases of the sheep. The poetic form allows for frighteningly vivid descriptions:
That dire distemper sometimes may the swain,
Though late, discern; when, on the lifted lid,
Or visual orb, the turgid veins are pale;
The swelling liver then her putrid store
Begins to drink: ev'n yet thy skill exert,
280 Nor suffer weak despair to fold thy arms:
Again detersive salt apply, or shed
The hoary med'cine o'er their arid food.
The Kama Sutra, an intricately diagrammed web of process descriptions about how to have sex, employs narrative to annotate and clarify the diagrams:
"Imagine..In his garden there are two swings, one revolving and one ordinary. Now sometimes, alone, he switches from one to the other until his head spins. But his favourite swing has neither ropes, nor wood, nor cushions" ("The Swing).
This narrative draws on the literary figure of analogy to clarify a complex sequence of actions. (Note: The narrative style of the Kama Sutra is brilliantly parodied in Christopher Moore's novel, "Lamb").
Here is a more contemporary example example of creative nonfiction in tech comm: Planned Parenthood's "STD petting zoo", an interactive cartoon about sexually transmitted diseases.
Taking these examples as a starting point, O'Dair's claim that graduate students are not getting anywhere with Langland's Piers Plowman becomes harder to evaluate. Like many technical communicators, Langland realized that people pay attention to abstract concepts when you draw smiley faces on and make up stories about them. Conceptually speaking, the structure and function of the soul (as described by Medieval scholars on the Greek New Testament) is as complex and "technical" as the parts of an amoeba. The anthropomorposized "parts of the soul" in Piers are created to help readers grasp and therefore modify the content of their souls. For example, the anthropomorphosized "Vices" in Piers--
And then came Covetousness · I can him not describe,
So hungry and hollow · Sir Harvey him looked.
He was beetle-browed · and blubber-lipped too,
With two bleared eyes · as a blind hog;
--are an analogous textual ancestor of the lively, anthropomorphosized STDs in Planned Parenthood's STD Petting Zoo.
In summary, Piers Plowman may have more to tell O'Dair's graduate students about technical and professional writing than she realizes. For example, that human readers are better able to grasp abstract concepts when they are presented as "characters" and explanations when they follow the structure of a story.
Those graduate students who can read Piers Plowman and apply Langland's anthropomorphic style of depicting "Vices" on the stage to (say) a better design for "idiot lights" on a dashboard might be the first ones to obtain tenurable positions on the academic job market.
a renewed slap in the face
every time I think about name deleted. If the form of harm had been less abstract, it could have faded over time.
from where we're standing, you look ghetto
The final page of Scholes' The Rise and Fall Of English turned with an unintentional slap of reality:
“But when professors became philologists, scholars, or literary critics, they deeply resented helping students with a prose that was neither literature nor anything else, but just “composition” –just as students resented and resisted learning a kind of writing that seemed to have no function beyond school” (p. 190).
Like Bonhoeffer, who got so innured to dungeon life that that he forgot about his imprisonment in Flossenburg "for weeks at a time", I blithely forgot about my own confinement:
“This {production} is the part of English that is usually put beyond the pale--as “creative” writing-- or down in the dungeon--as "composition" (p. 159).
Therefore, sentences like this one had to be read and reread for meaning:
“The useful, the practical, and even the intelligeable were relegated to composition” (p. 35).
Waaaaait a second, I thought. We're the ones who do the "relegating" around here! Why just the other day Sharon's student brought in his big dumb deconstruction book, and she calmly said,
"nooow, if you want to use that in your literature courses, that's perfectly fine.
Yeah. She relegated his head straight".
What even well-intentioned and perspicuous literary scholars liek Scholes fail to realize is that, like most indigenous peoples, composition scholars are not pressing our noses against the stained glass waiting to be "discovered":
“What I finally realized was that English departments need composition as the “other” of literature in order to function as they have functioned” (p. 35).
The above sentence is at once heartwarming and insulting. We built this department 1 syllogism at a time so you could have a place to deconstruct stuff (or whatever): You've finally noticed us?
On a second reading, I came to immensely appreciate Scholes' move toward a rapproachement. Still, though, scholars within the fields of composition, rhetoric and technical communication should remain critical of "integrationist" claims such as this one:
“Under this sign, there is no difference between the theory of composition and the theory of literature” (p. 36).
As Malcolm X points out, anyone who has been systematically enslaved should be critical of steps toward "integration", especially of integration initiated by the people who were doing the enslaving:
"Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "We shall overcome ... Suum Day.. ." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against ?The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every op pressed people in the world: the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, ... Cuba - yes Cuba too" ("El-Hajj Malik-Shabazz", p. 456).
For composition scholars, the danger of overarching alliances with literary scholars "is not a case of wanting either separation or integration.The use of these words actually clouds the real picture" (Malcolm X, "missing page numbers"). Rather, any initiative from within literary studies to disolve the disciplinary boundary between comp. and literature presents the risk of subsuming composition into a power structure that swears that, with our dedicated help, it can stop being exploitative.
“But when professors became philologists, scholars, or literary critics, they deeply resented helping students with a prose that was neither literature nor anything else, but just “composition” –just as students resented and resisted learning a kind of writing that seemed to have no function beyond school” (p. 190).
Like Bonhoeffer, who got so innured to dungeon life that that he forgot about his imprisonment in Flossenburg "for weeks at a time", I blithely forgot about my own confinement:
“This {production} is the part of English that is usually put beyond the pale--as “creative” writing-- or down in the dungeon--as "composition" (p. 159).
Therefore, sentences like this one had to be read and reread for meaning:
“The useful, the practical, and even the intelligeable were relegated to composition” (p. 35).
Waaaaait a second, I thought. We're the ones who do the "relegating" around here! Why just the other day Sharon's student brought in his big dumb deconstruction book, and she calmly said,
"nooow, if you want to use that in your literature courses, that's perfectly fine.
Yeah. She relegated his head straight".
What even well-intentioned and perspicuous literary scholars liek Scholes fail to realize is that, like most indigenous peoples, composition scholars are not pressing our noses against the stained glass waiting to be "discovered":
“What I finally realized was that English departments need composition as the “other” of literature in order to function as they have functioned” (p. 35).
The above sentence is at once heartwarming and insulting. We built this department 1 syllogism at a time so you could have a place to deconstruct stuff (or whatever): You've finally noticed us?
On a second reading, I came to immensely appreciate Scholes' move toward a rapproachement. Still, though, scholars within the fields of composition, rhetoric and technical communication should remain critical of "integrationist" claims such as this one:
“Under this sign, there is no difference between the theory of composition and the theory of literature” (p. 36).
As Malcolm X points out, anyone who has been systematically enslaved should be critical of steps toward "integration", especially of integration initiated by the people who were doing the enslaving:
"Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "We shall overcome ... Suum Day.. ." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against ?The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every op pressed people in the world: the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, ... Cuba - yes Cuba too" ("El-Hajj Malik-Shabazz", p. 456).
For composition scholars, the danger of overarching alliances with literary scholars "is not a case of wanting either separation or integration.The use of these words actually clouds the real picture" (Malcolm X, "missing page numbers"). Rather, any initiative from within literary studies to disolve the disciplinary boundary between comp. and literature presents the risk of subsuming composition into a power structure that swears that, with our dedicated help, it can stop being exploitative.
review of "she's gotta have it"
Spike and I can now the our trial separation caused by whatever he was thinking, or smoking, when he directed "X" (a film so disappointing that it really does incite hate crimes).
Cost of atonement: 4 dollars (approx.)
Cost of atonement: 4 dollars (approx.)
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