Author Archives: LauraHills

I Wish I’d Ended with More Razzmatazz

My presentation in class went pretty much as I’d hoped. I was pleased that my mother’s lessons to me as a child seemed to engage the class so well at the start of my presentation. I like to start my lessons with something dramatic like that whenever I can. (I generally avoid saying, “Today we’re going to….” or “Let’s pick up with….” or “OK class….” as the first words out of my mouth.) I was also pleased to hear the advice/lessons of our classmates who shared what their parents/guardians told them as children. I think we can all relate to the messages we were taught as kids. That’s why that seemed to me to be a great way to enter the world of Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”. Even though the girl in the story receives different advice than any of us probably had, we can all relate to basic premise of the story; we were all children once and our parents had things to say to us.

Technology is not my friend, so I wasn’t surprised at all that I couldn’t get my daughter’s boom box to play the song I had selected for the class. The song I did play was OK but the other one I had chosen was better for my purposes. (My selection was in English and Antigua is an English-speaking country. Also, the song I had selected was more clearly a Caribbean piece. It is by the same artist who did Hot, Hot, Hot.) But, I’m glad I marched on. I’ve learned that sometimes you just have to go on with the show when things don’t work as you’d hoped, especially when technology is concerned. Teachers always need Plan B, right?

One thing I wish I’d done differently is that I’d probably have told the class Cornell’s story as I would in an actual teaching situation (rather than just telling about the technique as I did). When teaching the lesson I would unfold Cornell’s story bit by bit with a storyteller’s flair. I’d tell my classmates that once there was a beautiful young African American boy named Cornell who grew up in a very poor neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. I’d describe the neighborhood and how dangerous it was for Cornell to grow up there. I’d tell: how Cornell worked like crazy to earn a place in the science and tech magnet school, how he had one teacher at that school who identified Cornell’s talent and helped him apply to a predominantly white prep school in rural Massachusetts (to get him away from gangs in his neighborhood), how Cornell won a scholarship to that school, went there, and graduated with honors, how he won a scholarship at Carlton college, how he spent junior year in Germany and became fluent in German, how he put himself through law school after he graduated doing all sorts of jobs – DJ, temp work, modeling, working in an improv troupe, playing the trumpet, being featured in a national Coke commercial. (The campaign was “A Coke and a Smile” and Cornell was the smile.) I’d tell how Cornell went on to become a high-level consultant with the CIA. I’d tell Cornell’s whole story like that building and building before I’d reveal that the story is true and that Cornell is my husband. That way the story would have big impact, I think. (There’s my love of the dramatic again.)

I was perhaps too mindful of my 20-minute time limit and rushed through this part of the presentation. But, at least I do think my classmates got the gist of what I would be trying to accomplish in telling my husband’s remarkable story. Rule of thumb from my days on the seminar circuit: Start and end strong. I started my presentation strong but my ending could have had a lot more razzmatazz. Next time I’ll remember that. — Laura

An Argument: How “Being Jewish” Influenced Graff More Than He Admits

Gerald Graff says briefly and in passing in Clueless in Academe that he is Jewish and that others (presumably his classmates and teachers) therefore regarded him as intelligent. Graff says, “In my case being Jewish already carried a presumption of being smart that I did not entirely disavow” (p. 216). Graff then attributes his “hidden intellectualism” to a number of factors such as his interest in sports and movies (p. 217). However, I argue (you like that?) that Graff’s being Jewish carried much more weight and had a greater influence on Graff’s value system than he admits. I contend (ha!) that if Graff is like most Jews, being Jewish predisposes him to valuing education, argumentation, and interpretation of texts.

In our last class session, I mentioned that argumentation and interpretation of texts has been the primary pedagogical tool used in formal religious studies since ancient times. Yeshiva boys and rabbinical students read portions of text, considered them deeply, and toyed with how they might be applied in various situations, hypothetical and real. To put it in modern literary terms, they did close readings of texts, sometimes consulted secondary sources (the Talmud), interpreted them, and created arguments. They would often be paired with other students to argue their position, then switch positions and argue the opposite point. This ancient pedagogical practice is still part of rabbinical training today.

Text interpretation and argumentation is not a technique exclusive to the rabbinate; it is embedded in Jewish life for all practicing Jews. The most obvious place we see text interpretation and argumentation is in the synagogue service. Jews read the Torah during particular synagogue services each week and then look for ways to connect the text they have just read to their lives, usually with the guidance of the Rabbi’s sermon. That is why a key component of the modern Bar of Bat Mitzvah service is the reading of a portion of Torah by the child, who then shares his or her interpretation of the text before the congregation.

Interpretation and argumentation also occurs for most Jews outside of the synagogue service. Children who attend Hebrew school, for instance, do close readings of texts, interpret them, and formulate arguments about how that text can be applied to various ethical questions. Recently, for example, my daughter’s religious school class discussed how Torah can be used to argue for or against stem cell research, homosexuality, and various environmental initiatives. Furthermore, home-based Jewish rituals such as the Passover service provide further opportunities for Jews to read texts, interpret them, and formulate arguments. The Hagaddah (the text read aloud at a Passover service) describes the story of Exodus but also offers commentary on that primary text.

One must remember, too, Jews have always held education and the asking of questions in high regard. For example, the most revered person historically in Jewish communities was neither the wealthiest nor the most powerful person in the community; it was the Rabbi. This was so not because the Rabbi was considered to have special powers or to have a special connection with God; it was so because the Rabbi was generally the most educated member of the community and the one who could guide others in their own learning. The word rabbi, in fact, translates as teacher.

Graff, as a Jew, would be predisposed to valuing education, text interpretation, and argumentation. He attributes his status as “closet nerd” to other factors such as in interest in sports and movies. “Being Jewish,” as Graff puts it, no doubt carried at least as much weight as sports and movies in Graff’s pathway to intellectualism, and probably much more. — Laura Hills

Ouch! Geral Graff Opened a 30-Year-Old Wound

       I’ve probably mentioned that I’ve spent the bulk of my career as a professional writer and have a few books and miles of articles under my belt. My published work is of the practical how-to variety in a field of applied business. I’ve been very successful. But that wasn’t always what I thought I’d do with my life. Way back when, I wanted to be an English professor. As I read our pal Gerald Graff this week, Chapter 6 (“Unlearning to Write”) in particular, I recalled the precise and painful moment when I decided that I had no future in academe.           

     I was a student in the elite and very competitive two-year honors English program at Rutgers College and during the spring of 1979, my senior year, I was working on my undergraduate thesis. I was interpreting the use and importance of etiquette in a couple of Henry James’ novels, contrasting European and American etiquette of the time and how James used those conventions to create tension. I worked with a very highly-regarded English professor and James scholar as my advisor for the project. He was extremely happy throughout our time together with the quality of my interpretations, my insights, my research into etiquette guides from James’ time, my ability to do magnificent close readings, and overall, the work I was doing on this project. We had many happy discussions in his office. The writing, though, troubled him. I gave him portions of my paper as I wrote them and he agreed that I had captured precisely the gist (as Graff calls it) of our discussions. But he said that my writing was too simple and easy to understand; my ideas were sensational, but my mode of expressing them – though forceful, entertaining, and grammatical — was not academic. My writing was too transparent, he said. He showed me examples of more scholarly-sounding papers. I read them but thought that that kind of writing was bad writing. It wasn’t clear. It obscured meaning by using very long and convoluted sentences, ten-dollar words most people wouldn’t know, and a high-fallutin snooty tone. We locked horns on this issue more than once. In the end, in my youthful willfulness, I wrote my thesis my way, in the straightforward, accessible, punchy language I knew in my heart was better.

            Four things grew out of this experience:

            1. My thesis was assessed as With Honors. That was the lowest of three possible distinctions. (With High Honors and With Highest Honors were the two higher designators.) The remarks of the committee were the same as those of my advisor. My ideas were wonderful, the committee said, but my language was too-straightforward; my paper was well-written but didn’t sound academic.

            2.  I was crushed. I decided that I had no place in academe and no talent or appreciation for writing in academic style.

            3. I was at this same time chosen as the one and only Rutgers’ University Danforth Foundation nominee. Had I won the fellowship, I would have had a free ride to any graduate school. I turned down the nomination and told the committee to give it to another student who was more suited to academic life.

            4. I graduated and in short time embarked on a writing career in the popular mode and became very successful.

            I look back at all of this, stir it together with what Graff said about academic writing, and I can’t help but hurt. I let a few people convince me that there was only one way to write in academe and that I had no future in the academy stating great ideas simply enough so that everyone could easily understand them. What a bunch of hooey.

            There’s a P.S. to my story. The professor/advisor of my thesis is still at Rutgers. I read recently in the Chronicle of Higher Education that he is now a high-level dean.

Journals, Lovitt, and Getting Students to Pony Up

Carl Lovitt’s inspiring essay on journaling makes me want to try journaling again with my own students. Lovitt’s piece has also encouraged me to try my own hand at journaling (once again for the umpteenth time). I am incredibly impressed with the self-reported results the students share toward the end of Lovitt’s essay. Those quotes are priceless. How I’d love to achieve those same great learning outcomes with my students – and for myself.

Unfortunately, I’ve tried journaling with my students and things didn’t turn out as well for us as they did for Lovitt and his gang .With rare exception, my students put precious little effort into their journal entries, writing only what they felt was the bare minimum to fulfill the assignment and appease me. In some journals I saw what looked like bunches of journal entries dashed off in a single sitting. I even saw journal entries that looked remarkably similar to those of classmates, suggesting either lots of discussion or outright copying/amending. So many of the entries I read in student journals were shallow and brief. I found the exercise of collecting and reading them to be a huge let down.

In fairness to my students, I have to admit that I have tried my hand at journaling and have never found a way to stick with it (hence the umpteenth time reference above). I’ve started many a journal with gusto and great intentions and then life happens; I don’t keep up with the writing. I put journal writing up there with doing situps – they’re good for me and I should do them, but when I’m tired, busy, or lazy, I don’t. When I’ve been writing a lot for work and school, the last thing I want to do is write some more in a journal. Perhaps I, too, am a victim of schoolish behavior when it comes to journaling. I will produce good writing when I know others will read it and that it “counts” for something (it will be published, graded, seen by my boss). When it’s just for me or just to get a checkmark from the teacher, well, let’s say the writing probably isn’t my A priority.

Our ENG 610 blogging seems to me to be a pretty decent way to stimulate the kinds of writing Lovitt seeks and to give students a reason to do a better job of it than my students did. Yes, as Lovitt suggests, having teachers (and peers) read and evaluate journals (or blog entries) has the potential to add a communicative dimension in the writing situation (p. 242). That isn’t what Lovitt was after, I know. But it seems to me to be a small price to pay to get students to produce journal entries of quality, entries that reach for deeper and more meaningful connections with the text. Public journaling may be what most of us need to give the writing our best effort.

Something else I might also do differently next time is to devote some class time to journaling and to journal in class along with my students. I think even the most schoolish among us will pony up and give a greater effort if the activity is done in class and even the teacher is doing it. I see my students putting great effort into pair and group work that’s not graded or to written exercises. Why not journal writing? – Laura Hills

A Pencil Is One of the Best Eyes

This week, I especially enjoyed Robert Scholes’ retelling of the anecdote of Agassiz and the fish (Textual Power, Chapter 8). As the perpetual student, I have had my share of such challenges placed before me by my professors. For example, I remember one film studies professor having our class watch a one-minute clip of a Jean Renoir film again and again. He then asked us to write about it. I did, only to be told afterwards that what I had written wasn’t what the all-knowing professor was looking for (though he never could explain what that was). I had a similar frustrating experience with another professor having to do with my interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Beautiful and the Damned. “I can see why you suggested what you did and took the approach that you did, but I was hoping for something just a little bit more,” he said to me. Sadly, I never did get what that little bit more was. These experiences remind me of the story of the boss who tells his subordinate, “Bring me a rock.” About 200 rocks later, the boss says, “Yes, that’s exactly what I had in mind.” All of us, like poor Professor Agassiz’s student, have had to take part in a puzzle or riddle and “guess what the professor” or a boss had in mind (Scholes p. 138).

What impressed me most in the retelling of the fish story (other than Scholes’ joke about the name Stanley Fish) is the part where the post-graduate student gets the idea of drawing the fish. Through drawing, the student begins to see [my emphasis] features in it that he had not noticed before (Scholes, p. 138). Agassiz reinforces the student’s drawing effort by saying, “That is right, a pencil is one of the best eyes” (Scholes p. 138). This pencil idea is an intriguing one; if Agassiz is correct, the act of creating a visual rendering of our subject can illuminate for us what our eyes alone will miss. Is that because drawing slows us down? Does drawing make us notice and record each detail separately and look for connections and relationships between details? Or, is more going on with the use of the pencil in our understanding because of the kinetic and visual types of learning that drawing requires of us?

The study of literature is one in which we notice and record details and look for relationships between details. It is not usually a kinetic or visual kind of learning. Drawing, with pencil in hand, may therefore be a useful tool for our students. You may recall that we explored one possible use of the pencil ever so briefly in our recent discussion of Sonny’s Blues. One idea Professor Sample talked about was to have students create a time and place inventory to explore when and where each part of the story takes place. This visual timeline exercise could be useful, he suggested, to help students consider Wright’s use of flashback in the telling of this story.

There may be many other ways we can help our students use the pencil to draw what they are seeing in literature. Let’s imagine asking our students to approach literary studies, then, with blank poster paper and a spanking new box of 64 Crayola crayons. How might we proceed? Here are a few ideas.

First, let’s consider Sonrisas, Pat Mora’s poem that begins, “I live in a doorway” (Norton anthology, p. 528). We could ask our students to do a color rendering of the doorway and what the speaker hears and sees on either side of it. Color could be so useful in capturing the emotions in this piece. Second, remember that list of verbs that some of our classmates created for William Carlos Williams “The Use of Force”? We could ask students to make a streak of color to represent each verb. That might help them explore the emotions and intensity evoked by those verbs. Or, in the same story, we could ask students to count the number of words spoken by the father, the mother, and Mathilda and then create a bar graph or pie chart to illustrate the final counts. Or, we can ask them to draw a portrait of Mathilda herself, the savage brat, to capture her flushed face, her magnificent blonde hair, her catlike movement.

These drawing techniques may seem at first like elementary-school exercises; students may resist using them on those grounds. However, if we can find a way to get students open up to using drawing as their eyes, they may discover a great deal about the text at hand. After all, drawing is a useful technique in art therapy, and art therapists get adults to draw all the time. Why can’t we? For that matter, why couldn’t we design an interdisciplinary course combining literature studies and studio art? Scholes is definitely onto something here. – Pollyanna Hills

The Curmudgeon of ENG 610 Asks Two Questions

At dinner last night, my husband and I engaged in one of our usual spirited conversations. This one began with theories of leadership that I’m studying in another course, but honestly, we could have been talking about goat herding. The topic didn’t matter. After several volleys, Cornell told me that I enjoy arguing. Moi? Enjoy arguing?  I jabbed back that he couldn’t be more wrong. I lock horns with Cornell during these discussions, I said, because I have strong opinions. That’s all.However, reading my four blog posts up in my office early this Sunday morning (while Cornell is downstairs eating breakfast), I have something to admit to all of you, my colleagues. Surprise, surprise, I see that my dear husband is right. The truth is that I’m downright cantankerous.

I didn’t realize until right now that each of my first four blog posts for ENG 610 argues something, and that that something is without exception based upon a negative. Here’s what I mean:

  • Blog Post 1: I argue that my instructors failed me by not teaching me how to read poetry and for not sharing with me that poetry is difficult.
  • Blog Post 2: I argue that Bass’s oral assessment method is cause for concern – three concerns, in fact.
  • Blog Post 3: I argue that the way we teach literature studies today is just a fashion trend – as was New Criticism – and that things will change again.
  • Blog Post 4: I argue that the lecture still has merit as a teaching and learning tool despite the fact that practically everyone says it doesn’t.

So Question #1 is: Why does Laura Hills keep coming at these blog entries with both fists up and so much vinegar and sass running through her veins?  Do I really just like to argue for argument’s sake?

Yes. When tasked with writing and posting my response to the readings in this course, my first thought each and every time is: What’s wrong? What’s troubling? Where did the author leave himself/herself open for a knockout punch? And, dear readers, what will make for interesting reading for you, my darlings?  I don’t want to tell you week after week what is right or good in what we’re reading. That’s a snooze. I focus instead on what is wrong, where the weaknesses are, where I can stick my scalpel, open the patient wide for you, and expose the hidden infection so you’ll see it and recoil in horror.

What’s most interesting to me about this observation is that in most human interactions, I’m not like this at all. I’m actually a nice person. Really. I am always the one looking for points of agreement between disputants, seeking ways we can achieve consensus, thinking about what makes us more alike than different. Ask the people I work with. Ask my students. They’ll tell you that I dwell on the good and that I’m the heart of the little university where I work. That leads me to:

Question #2: Why am I such a curmudgeon when it comes particularly to intellectual tasks like theoretical dinner table conversations with my husband and reading texts?

I suppose I’m no different from the rats in B. F. Skinner’s famous experiments. I run through my maze and press my little bar time and time again to get my little pellet of food. I argue in these situations because it’s hugely rewarding for me to do so. I’ve made the bulk of my money in my career not as a teacher but as a writer. Sass gets me the big bucks. (Figurative bucks, folks. They’re not all that big.) My ability to argue has also gotten me a bucket of A’s throughout school. Here I am in my last course for my doctoral program – nine years into my graduate school odyssey — and I see that I’ve built my academic career and success hugely upon argumentation. There are big rewards for taking the low road.

Argumentation has also become personally gratifying for me. If I told you in blog posts that Randy Bass and Sheridan Blau have great ideas, I’d not only probably bore you all into a stupor but I’d feel useless. It’s far more interesting, fresher, fun and satisfying for me to spit tacks at them. Frankly, it feels good to land a good one right on the kisser every now and then. In some circles, they call that scholarship. (Sorry, fellow 610-ers, there’s that sass again.)

In the spirit of learning something new this term, I’d like to try an experiment and I need your help. Next week, when we write blog posts based upon our readings, I promise to focus mine entirely on positives. I won’t point out faults or weaknesses or concerns or predict gloom and doom. This will be difficult for me. But I’m willing to play nice just this once to see how it feels. Then I can figure out what to do next.

What I need from you guys is to read what I write next week and to tell me what you think of it – really think of it. I’m going to let the curmudgeon take a holiday. But first, I’m going to join my husband for breakfast. I need to ask him to read this and to tell him that he was right. Oy! – Laura Hills

A Defense of the Learning Tool Everyone Loves to Hate

The college lecture has taken a beating in education reform. As Wilner suggests, “… although even the most pedagogically enlightened among us find occasions for a brief lecture, we can no longer use this word without self-conscious acknowledgment of its political incorrectness” (p.181).

Certainly, there’s no place for dull, droning lectures in today’s classrooms. However, let’s not assume that the lecture is an inherently bad teaching and learning tool. The pendulum need not swing quite that far.

Mrs. Lyons was my favorite college literature instructor back at Rutgers in the 70s. I had the pleasure of studying two semesters of Shakespeare with her at a time when lecturing was a respected and popular tool for teaching literature. I learned a ton studying with Mrs. Lyons. And I say that with absolute certainty today, even though Mrs. Lyons exemplified the very kind of teaching that Blau argues against. Mrs. Lyons told us how she interpreted Shakespeare, pointing out what was interesting in the text, reading passages aloud that she felt were noteworthy.

I see where Blau is coming from. He argues that learners must construct their own meanings. That’s what scads of education theorists advocate in a movement called constructivism. At the same time, Wilner is on the money that lectures are not PC today. But stirring those facts together in a pot still won’t explain the magic of Mrs. Lyons. If lecturing is so bad, how did I learn so much by studying literature with a lecturer? Yes, Mrs. Lyons’ interpretations were hers and those of her colleagues, not my own. But ‘zounds, could Mrs. Lyons make Shakespeare sing! She was a gifted tour guide in a foreign land, opening up fantastic possibilities for me in Shakespeare.

I argue that the lecture is still a valuable learning tool and that we don’t need to throw this baby out with the bath water. Change it? Yes, to make it more interactive. Use it judiciously and along with other teaching strategies? Yes, absolutely. But abandon the lecture altogether because it no longer works? I think not.

Lecture naysayers will say that whatever is accomplished through lecture can be put in print or online. That way class time can be devoted entirely to the constructivist types of activities that Blau models in his workshops. However, in defense of the lecture, I argue that lecturing has its merits. Most other learning tools cannot give a live and polished voice to Shakespeare’s sonnets or to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Most learning tools cannot seem as personal and approachable to students as a living, talking person they know and respect. Most tools are hard-pressed to make a group of students laugh out loud simultaneously and enjoy themselves as a group. Most can’t answer questions or give learners more examples on demand. Perhaps most importantly, few learning tools can give learners memorable same time, same-place learning experiences that help them feel that they are part of a living, breathing learning community that has a human face. A good lecture can do all of these things.

One might argue that Blau’s workshop strategies also do these things. True. Blau offers great ideas and I will try many of them. However, let’s not forget that I learned a ton through Mrs. Lyons’ lectures. And, to lock horns with Blau, I did not learn simply how to parrot what I heard Mrs. Lyons say and only as it applied to the texts at hand. Mrs. Lyons was a much better teacher than that.

Mrs. Lyons, like many good teachers, was a modeler. My piano teacher modeled arpeggios for me, my golf instructor models the golf swing for me, and Mrs. Lyons modeled literary analysis for me. Then, through instruction and practice (and with the loving guidance and feedback of a pro) I learned how to play fluid arpeggios, how to swing a golf club (well, still working on that one), and yes, how to do close reading of texts. The lecture provided me with an opportunity to see Mrs. Lyons (a pro) at work, modeling for me how it’s done, breaking her process into manageable steps, sharing her bag of tricks. Then through writing assignments, I tried my hand at doing what the pro modeled (literary analysis) and with thoughtful feedback, Mrs. Lyons helped me get better and better at it. Was that really so awful?

Let’s not apologize or be sheepish when we lecture. Let’s not shrink in horror at the thought of lecturing. Instead, let’s recognize that lecturing is simply a teaching and learning tool – and that’s all it is, one tool among many. Let’s agree not to overuse the lecture (or any learning tool, for that matter). Let’s not use the lecture (or any learning tool) badly. Most of all, let’s not toss the lecture out with yesterday’s trash. Let’s focus instead on how we can use lectures, when we might use lectures, and whether lectures will be effective in producing targeted learning outcomes. – Laura Hills

Rip Van Winkle Predicts the Future of Literature Studies

Reading about New Criticism this week provided me with a poignant and sentimental stroll down memory lane. Back in the 1970s when I was an undergraduate majoring in English/Literature, New Criticism was literature studies. For those of you who came into literature studies after this period (and that’s pretty much everyone in our class), I can tell you that those were glorious days. We felt we could tackle any piece of literature armed with a trusty set of skills, a literary vocabulary, an enthusiasm for close readings, and our sheer wits.Imagine what it was like for me to return to formal literature studies in the late 1990s when I decided to pursue my master’s degree in English/Literature here at Mason. I was a stranger in a strange new land. Now, theory reigned. Feminists had things to say. Marx somehow had crept into the picture. Historical constructs mattered. And, new voices were included in the literary canon, voices previously marginalized and entirely off my radar screen. The “world” of “world literature” got a whole lot larger in my 25-year hiatus from the academy. Dead white guys now would have a lot of company on my bookshelf and close readings would no longer cut it as the be all, end all of literature studies.

I am Rip Van Winkle. I fell asleep and woke up to a new reality. But why? What happened to my beloved field? What made the tides turn as they did?

Actually, those tides turned long before even I got into the mix. There was a time – before New Criticism – when literature studies meant something entirely different. Students studied classics, and I’m not talking about Herman Melville here. They read the writers of antiquity and they had to know Latin to do so. Memorization was king. The idea of reading more contemporary works and discussing them was unthinkable in the academy. That wasn’t literature studies.

New Criticism was born after World War I but came into its heyday after World War II. Suddenly, thanks to the G.I. bill, we had an influx of college students the likes of which our academies had never seen before. These weren’t the privileged, well-prepared students of the past; they were servicemen. Now literature professors were confronted with students who had no clue about Latin and never heard of Ovid. What were they going to do with them? The answer was to teach them skills and vocabulary and set them loose on English language texts. New Criticism was the perfect solution to the practical challenge at hand. Now, anyone who could read and who was smart could be taught to study literature – no years of upper crust preparatory school education needed.

Reader Response Criticism speaks of its time, too. It would have been pretty difficult for us to have feminist readings of literature before we had feminists. Pop culture and social politics were fertile ground for baby boomer English professors who cut their teeth in the 1960s. The academy once again kept pace with what was going on in the world.

So where are we headed next? I have a prediction. I believe that the next wave – the one students will read about in the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism in the year 2050 or so – will be what I’ll call Technology Criticism.

We’ve been up to this point wed to the notion that literature is linear; we start to read a text with the first word and end the text with the last word. But take a careful look at the Johns Hopkins entries we read this week and you’ll see that text need no longer be linear. Hot links can take us on a hypertext superhighway anywhere the author wants to send us and where we want to go. That means that each of us is free to experience hypertext in our own unique and nonlinear way.

Literature, inevitably, will harness this technology and the creative freedom it offers. Authors growing up right now will think in hypertext. They’ll write poems, novels, short stories, personal essays – our future literature — without the limitations of linear text. Sound, animation, images – all of that will become part of their texts, embedded in them, giving birth to new genres. The production and consumption of literature as we know it will change, as it always does. And, the academy will follow suit, as it always does, too.

Am I crazy? Maybe. Time will tell. Let’s just see where we are 25 years from now. This time, though, I promise you that Rip Van Winkle won’t be taking any hiatus from the academy. From now on, I’m staying wide, wide awake. – Laura Hills

Laura’s Take on Bass’s Oral Assessment Idea

I become overwhelmed and disheartened sometimes by the large volume of writing my students generate and that I must read. I’m always on the lookout for strategies to help reduce the time I spend with student papers – that is, without shortchanging students.

So far, I’ve learned a few strategies. For example, last term in English 610 (The Teaching of Composition), Professor Gallehr recommended that we become speed readers. He told us that reading quickly is a great skill for a writing teacher and one we’re all capable of developing. Professor Gallehr also advocated that we limit the comments we put on papers. I’ve tried both of these suggestions and while they do save time, I feel like I’m rushing through student papers and may miss something important.

In my study of the Visible Knowledge Project this week, I hit on another idea. Randy Bass says he shifted from written to oral midterm and final assessments. That would certainly cut down on the paperwork. But three concerns immediately spring to mind.

First, it’s not clear from the poster whether Bass teaches his students how to have worthwhile “conversations” about literature in preparation for the oral assessments. I’m guessing that class discussions help But I wonder how else Bass teaches the conversation skills he assesses. Is the midterm the first opportunity his students have to receive one-on-one feedback on their conversation skills? I’m not sure.

Second, it occurs to me that students who are already good conversationalists and who are at ease speaking will have a huge advantage on this kind of assessment. One might argue that good writers and test takers have a leg up on written exams and that this is no different. Still, I can imagine that there would be students who would clam up in an oral exam; stage fright might do them in.

Third, how much time does Bass spend on the oral assessments? He says he videotapes the conversations. He also says he dubs and compresses the tape onto a CD and puts his comments on as a Word file. Then, he has students write a brief response looking closely at two places in the oral midterm and reflecting how they might have answered questions better or differently. When you add it up, it seems likely that Bass is spending even more time than he would grading a written exam. But it’s time spent differently. I suppose that counts for something.

Despite these concerns, there’s one thing I like a lot about Bass’s oral assessment idea; his students get to have a one-on-one conversation with him. I read a study once that suggested that freshmen in a community college who spent as little as 10 minutes with a single instructor were more likely to remain enrolled than those who didn’t have that chance. We must not forget how much it means to our students when we talk with them meaningfully and individually, especially when we do so outside of the classroom. I love student conferences for this reason. And so, too, I like Bass’s idea because he’s hit on a way to ensure that every student gets that all-so-important one-on-one time. – Laura Hills

My Difficulty with Reading Poetry: A Confession

The three student epigraphs that begin Chapter 2 of our Difficulty text acknowledge that poetry “is a particularly difficult genre for many students to read” (Salvatori & Donahue, p. 15). Like those students, I’ve never considered myself to be a capable reader of poetry. I, too, have been taught few tools for reading poetry and have had little poetry reading practice. This is an astounding revelation for someone who has both undergraduate and graduate degrees in English. My literature studies focused almost exclusively on short stories, novels, and plays. Why is that?

Thinking back to my undergraduate days, I see that my very small amount of poetry study didn’t resemble the reading activities Salvatori and Donahue describe. My instructors lectured about the poems we read and the poets who wrote them. I remember a particularly dismal course in which we studied Paradise Lost and all I can recall is being in pain. The instructor allowed for some discussion, usually dominated by only a few students. I felt there was something wrong with me and zoned out during these discussions. It never occurred to me that Milton is difficult. It didn’t seem to be that way for my instructor or for my few classmates who spoke up.

I don’t remember being taught strategies to approach the difficulty in poetry. I was taught no system of notation like the one Salvatori and Donahue describe on page 19-20. Yes, I was taught to identify similes and metaphors and can do so. However, I wasn’t taught how to use those those similes and metaphors, once identified, to help me tackle the difficulties in the poems.

Here’s the difficulty in my own story; I write poetry. And I work hard at writing it, sometimes spending weeks revising a short poem. Now, why would someone who doesn’t consider herself to be a good reader of poetry (and who has generally avoided reading poetry) write poetry, poetry she finds difficult to write?

To begin, I’ve had far more writing poetry instruction than reading poetry instruction. I took a creative writing class in college in which I produced a collection of poems. My instructor gave me many good ideas for poetic form and highlighted words, phrases, and lines of my poems for me to consider more deeply. Her astute observations and excellent suggestions helped me push to find just the right word or eliminate the unnecessary. She taught me that writing good poems is difficult and that’s my expectation to this day.

I’ve also gotten very positive feedback about the poems I write. In that course, I shared my poems with my classmates and remember enjoying their praise. I’ve had a few poems published — something that makes me proud. I wrote an elegy and read it at a funeral and many people told me how much it meant to them and how beautiful it was. I’ve also written song lyrics (and music) for several area schools now using them, including the university where I teach.

I’ve had instruction and reinforcement for writing poetry but little for reading poetry. I’ve believed that reading poetry wasn’t my thing and that difficult poems are beyond me – a defect in my abilities. I see now that I’ve been lacking the tools, encouragement, and opportunity I needed to be a good reader of poetry. Now, I wonder if I might actually enjoy reading poetry and be good at it. — Laura Hills