Not Teaching

For the first time since 2007, I won't be teaching in the fall. I'm now Richard Bland College's Director of Grants.

Phi Theta Kappa Kickball Tournament

Phi Theta Kappa hosted a kickball tournament on April 17 to raise money for the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation. We raised more than $200. Check out some photos on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152056394688587.1073741835.78511978586&type=1

Class-Generated Poetry Terms

Into the World

As part of their contracts, students in my English classes have to send at least one of their final revisions "into the world." The language in the contract is a little different from ENG 100 and 101 to ENG 102 because of 102's focus on literary genres, but the idea is the same: to think of the writing we do for class as being able to exist outside of the classroom, in the real world. This is a relatively new requirement, and I've asked students to let me know if they get responses from "the world."

Yesterday, a former student, Davianna O'Berry, shared a response with me and, with her permission, I'm including a snapshot of her twitter conversation with Erin Palmer. But first, a little background.

One of the short stories I assign for the semester is Lorrie Moore's "How to Become a Writer." The first writing assignment is a short character analysis with a twist -- students have to find some sort of personal connection to a character. So it's kind of a character analysis combined with a personal narrative.

Davianna related to Moore's depiction of uncertainty in college and beyond. She posted the essay to her class blog and found a relevant article online: "Why it's OK to be confused about your career," by Erin Palmer. She then shared her blog post with Erin Palmer, that article's author, via Twitter. While Davianna's essay may have a couple missteps and while the blog post may have a typo or two, I'm still excited that Davianna's ideas made it out of the four walls of our classroom and into the world.

Here's their Twitter conversation:

Why We Read and Write Poetry

Also on my personal blog. Since I keep hearing this on commercials, I thought I'd post a video of the original speech, from Dead Poets Society.

Crappy Notes

Out of context, these notes I put on the board are terrible. I almost feel sorry for my students.

Think Different

I posted this on my personal blog, but I wanted to post it here too. It's an Apple ad from 1997 (it's also in the movie Jobs). This is the real one, and it's for all the people -- especially students writing about the world -- who say things like "That's just the way it is" or "Things will never change." Maybe what we all need is a little more crazy!

Halloween Film Festival

There's a Halloween Film Festival today and students can submit scenes. I like to have a few ready, just for fun.

Trailer:

Scene:

Scene:

Death:

Poetry pre-brainstorm

I ask students to brainstorm some poetry terms/ideas before we discuss poems. Here's a list.

Dia de los Muertos

I walked past Ms. Finney's room and noticed the students doing something that looked like it might be interesting. So I stopped for a second and I was kindly invited in. The class was making skulls for Dia de los Muertos, which they'll later decorate. Looked like fun!

Bat Dad

We listened to some music during peer review sessions today. The music was from The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. One student told me about Bat Dad on YouTube. I thought it was funny, so I'm posting it here.

Taylor Mali -- "The The Impotence of Proofreading"

Watched this in class to get students in "the mood" for peer reviewing each other's papers:

Brainstorming

Notes from one of our famous brainstorming sessions.

"Everything That Rises Must Converge," Part 2

I sometimes make students write a "sequel" or an ending to a story. They did it in groups, but I wrote a couple of my own to Flannery O'Connor's classic, "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Here they are:

 

The first one:

Regretting the way he chastises his mother, Julian charges back towards the bus stop, his mom suffering on the ground. As the bus approaches, a moment before the stop, Julian jumps in front. The bus screeches to a halt after the intense impact.

Julian’s mother regains her senses after her momentary disorientation. She remembers getting hit with the purse, but she isn’t sure how she ended up lying on the ground.

“Julian?” she calls out. “Julian, where are you?” She gets up and walks back towards the bus stop, searching. She continues to call his name.

She sees the blood on the road first, then on the front of the bus. She sees legs poking out from under the bus, but she doesn’t recognize them at first. “What happened here?” she asks anyone who’s listening.

The bus driver, a black man, waits outside the bus, pushing people back as they crowd in around the legs and the bus. “Ma’am. Stay back, ma’am. There’s been an accident.”

Julian’s mother then recognizes Julian’s pants. All at once, she cries out, “My boy! My sweet Julian!”

“You know him?” the bus driver says. “He just come out of nowhere, ma’am. I didn’t mean to. It was almost like he done it on purpose.”

The bus driver wraps his arm around Julian’s mother. She breaks down and cries into the man’s chest. As she wraps her arms around him, squeezing as if he were her son, darkness seems to arrive instantly as Julian’s mother enters the world of guilt and sorrow.

 

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The second one:

Julian’s guilt and sorrow began to overtake him when he couldn’t find anyone to help. He ran to his mother and squeezed her tightly, with little control of his bodily motions. His hand pushed in on the soft spot behind his ear and something began to happen.

Julian’s mother’s mouth opened wider than should’ve been possible. Julian could see inside his mother and the color of metal caught his eye. She was a robot. Her mouth opened wider, revealing small, white being. It had a head too large for its body and was, in total, the size of a small kitten. It was controlling Julian’s robot mother, and it had been for some time.

Julian wanted to yell for help, but he was too surprised to speak. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. The being jumped from the controls and kicked Julian in the face. Julian fell to his back and the being quickly pulled out a small, metal device that paralyzed Julian.

“You stupid humans,” the being said. “We’ve been fooling you for years.”

“Ughhhghghghgh!” Julian said.

“You can’t speak. I’ve paralyzed everything but your brain so I can conveniently explain what’s been happening before you die. You see, I’m from a planet called Whiteness. Not only did we take over many of the white people on your planet centuries ago, but we also engrained racism into your world’s culture. We almost won with Hitler. But then it all fell apart. You Americans are stubborn, but we’ve succeeded so well that you can’t even be a good non-racist. Julian, you just want to use black people to be mean to your mother. Stupid humans. Lately, we’ve used social networks to make a comeback. We’re taking over!!! Long live Whiteness!!! Ha ha ha ha!!!”

With that, The little, white being stuck his small arm up Julian’s nose and pulled out his brain. He got back in Julian’s mother and closed the door. She stood and walked away as if nothing happened.

Alan Parsons Project -- The Cask of Amontillado

Grading Contracts: A Link

Some people who read this know that I also blog for The Chronicle of Higher Education. I wrote, there, about trying a grading contract. Here's the link: http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/a-grading-contract/39433

I thought some of the comments on that post were interesting and some students and other professors might want to see what was said.

A Blog for the Book

http://adjunctbook.blogspot.com/

I don't plan on updating it often, especially when the school year rolls around, but there's the link anyway. Some sample chapters from Same Track, Different Track. And a coupon. And a giveaway.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Same Track, Different Track

by Isaac Sweeney

Giveaway ends August 16, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I Decided to Self-Publish

"I decided to self-publish"

http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/i-decided-to-self-publish/39893

Summer Job

After realizing I have tons of DVDs around the house, I decided I needed to get rid of some. So I opened an Amazon store. So far, I've sold about $100 worth of DVDs and I have about 100 left to sell. Here's the storefront: http://www.amazon.com/shops/AHE6PLFIGH9E4.

I also published a book. Read about this decision here and you can buy it here.