Posted in College, Education, Narration, Students, Teaching, Writing on Mar 31st, 2007 2 Comments »
Spring Break officially begins today; however, as a Monday/Wednesday instructor, mine began a few days ago. I still have an armload of papers to grade, but I’m taking a few days off to recover from my last grading marathon.
The sun was shining on my world until I sat down to my e-mail this morning. [...]
Posted in Books, College, Education, English, Narration, Students, Teaching, Writing on Mar 29th, 2007 23 Comments »
One of the major breakthroughs I experienced as a student was a direct result of Henry James.
During my time as a graduate student, I signed up for a Henry James literature course because I thought highly of the professor who was teaching it. I don’t think I’d really read much Henry James—“Daisy Miller” perhaps [...]
Posted in Books, College, Education, English, Narration, Teaching, Writing on Mar 28th, 2007 23 Comments »
It was well after dark when I got home this evening, but through the small gaps in the pines trees that surround my home, I was able to catch a glimpse of my front porch. I saw the small package on the doorstep: it had arrived early.
With the giddy excitement of a child on [...]
Posted in College, English, Illustration, Students, Teaching, Writing on Mar 27th, 2007 23 Comments »
Reading and grading papers is a bit like what I imagine peeling back my skin would cause—if the peeling back of my skin didn’t kill me—it would hurt a lot, but it would heighten my perceptions.
After a long grading session, many of the idiosyncrasies (good and bad) embedded in what I read remain in my [...]
Posted in Classification, College, Education, English, Essay, Students, Teaching, Writing on Mar 26th, 2007 24 Comments »
One of the things I do in addition to my teaching duties at Sacramento City College is read the English Assessment exams in-coming students must take to ascertain where they’re to be placed within the parameters of the offered English courses.
I read about fifty exams this afternoon, and I find I am troubled anew by [...]
Posted in College, Education, Grammar, Illustration on Mar 25th, 2007 1 Comment »
Today’s post is my way of letting each of you experience a bit of my daily routine: reading, marking, and grading papers.
This is one of those areas I have little room to complain about; after all, papers are a staple of a teacher’s life, right?
Okay, while that might be is the case, I can still [...]
Posted in College, Education, Illustration, Writing on Mar 24th, 2007 24 Comments »
Okay, so we’ve talked about it already, but our conversation simply can’t end with yesterday’s post.
I have to keep going with this because the article is a fine example of the oh-so-common poor writing that is routinely released into the world by those who know no better.
I’ll remind you of the horrible sentence in question:
[The [...]
Posted in College, Education, English, Illustration, Writing on Mar 23rd, 2007 24 Comments »
I do my share of complaining about the lack of attention my students pay to what they write, and one of the reasons for this is the long-term consequences I foresee when poor writers and thinkers are released into the world.
Let’s face it: common sense is no longer common.
I was scouring the news this morning [...]
Posted in College, Education, Narration, Students, Teaching on Mar 22nd, 2007 21 Comments »
I spoke about the need to revamp the college system a few posts ago, and part of what I proposed has been undertaken in the United Kingdom: recognizing meaningful educational needs and their equal importance.
The Government has today set out detailed proposals so that from 2015 all young people will remain in some form of [...]
Posted in Classification, College, Education, English, Teaching, Writing on Mar 21st, 2007 3 Comments »
Last time on “Lest We Forget Teaching Is a Business,” I filled you in on the basics of teachers’ unions and the fact that the workload among the disciplines isn’t equal. I also explained that my current concern was over my job, and not the other issues I have with adjunct representation within the [...]