(My) names in the news

I don't know what other people think of when they hear the name of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but I think, My people, my people! I don't know how many times I got called Zelensky in my youth, and I don't know what compels so many people to insist on inserting a superfluous n in Zelesky, but it happened ALL. THE. TIME. Zelesky, Zelensky, Zaleski, and other variants of the name are common in Eastern Europe, but growing up, I never met a Zelesky who wasn't a blood relative, so it's kind of fun to hear the name all over the airwaves, even for a bizarre reason.

And speaking of names in the news, this morning I heard the regional NPR station's newsreader mangle the name of a former college classmate of mine, Greg VanTatenhove, who is now a federal judge in Kentucky. The name is not that difficult if you take it slowly, but the newsreader charged at it all at once and fell on his face.

Also this morning I found a familiar photograph in the Marietta Times, accompanying an article about declines in bird populations. The reporter called yesterday to ask some questions, but I was at first reluctant to respond because the local rag has a reputation for mangling quotes; however, she wanted to ask me why I love birds, which I'm usually happier to talk about than others are to listening. The article got the quotes mostly correct, and I was delighted about the photo because it brings back memories of chasing yellow-rumped warblers around a local wetland.

And you know what else? She spelled my name right, and she even pronounced it correctly when she called. (You don't want to know how many horrible ways there are to mispronounce Hogue.)

Who let the doggerel out?

Funny how the stress of the semester makes the doggerel dry up. When was the last time I wrote some silly verses? To much nose-to-the-grindstoning impairs wordplay, but a long walk in the woods, with a breath of autumn blowing across my face, makes me want to bust some rhymes:

Plod, plod,
I lug my bod
straight up the hill,
across the sod,
over the creek,
and through the woods.
(This plodding does
my body good.)

Strain, strain, 
I drag my brain
through syntax drear,
misspellings (pain),
non sequiturs,
lame arguments.
(A mental workout
quite intense.)

Snore, snore,
I dream of more
papers to read
(They're such a chore!),
more paths to walk,
rhythms to plod. 
(To limber up
Both mind and bod.)

 

Not all excuses are created equal

Dear student who has been throwing up all night: Please do not come to class. Please please please stay in bed or go to the wellness center. We do not want you to share your germs with us and we certainly don't want any vomiting in class, unless it is purely metaphorical vomiting, and even that is a little iffy at a moment when just about everyone seems to be teetering on the edge of illness. 

Dear student who has not been throwing up all night but would like a good excuse to get an extension on a major assignment: Don't tell me you're sick if you're just panicking, and trust me on this: getting an extension on this assignment will only delay your start on the next assignment so that you'll be playing catch-up all semester. Do your work. Turn it in. And don't lie to me about being sick. (Hint: if you're well enough to go to your sports practice, you're well enough to go to class.)


Dear committee chair: "Just skip that class every other week" is not a valid solution to a committee scheduling problem. Your committee may be doing important work, but classes are, you know, the reason we're here, and they should not be sacrificed to solve your scheduling problem.

Dear student who is traveling to participate in a sports event: If the team bus leaves at 11, why do you have to miss an 8 a.m. class? If it takes you three hours to walk from your dorm to the bus, maybe you should rethink your athletics participation.


Dear student who is experiencing truly unprecedented and traumatic real-life problems: No one should have to endure what you're enduring while also trying to keep up on school work, so take a few days to sort it out. I'd be happy to meet with you later to help you catch up. Go with God!

Isms and meetings and drafts, oh my!

I took a heavy bag full of isms to class yesterday--Modernism! Imagism! Literary impressionism!--and distributed them freely to students, whose backpacks are stuffed so full I don't know how they'll fit another ism in there.

In another class we talked about the trend toward artificially gray hair among the young, and students noted the irony of spending a pile of money to turn their hair gray while their own mothers pay to cover gray up. Meanwhile, I'm hanging on to gray hair that cost me nothing.

First-year drafts and required conferences made my brain feel crowded this week, so I took a little time today to walk before coming to campus. I admired goldenrod blossoms shining in the sunlight, scared up a kingfisher, and visited the neighbor's donkeys, but mostly I spent the time mentally running through a talk I'll be giving next month. The kingfisher had no comment on the subject.

In two spots along the road I saw skid marks, one of them very close to the creek, and I wondered what creature dashed into the road to inspire such screeching stops. This week my Honors students have been writing about how they'll overcome obstacles arising in their paths toward success, drawing inspiration from Homer's Odyssey, and while I admire their confidence in their ability to maneuver around whatever impedes them, I know that the obstacles that lead to a screeching stop are the ones we least expect and therefore can't prepare for in advance. 

I've faced no major obstacles this week, wrestled no monsters and angered no Greek gods (to my knowledge), but even so, it felt good to bring all my work--all the isms, discussions, meetings, and drafts--to a gentle stop so I could wander aimlessly in the cool morning air.

I love to see the milkweed pods release their seeds.

Hard stop--right next to the creek.

Sometimes this whole place looks like a Grant Wood painting.

Can't complain (much)

I could complain about how hard it is to get anything done in the brief gaps of time between student conferences today, but I'm the one who required all my first-year writers to meet with me about their drafts, so I'd just be kicking myself when I'm down--except I'm not down! How can I be down when my students are writing interesting and (mostly) competent essays, arriving at their appointments on time, and explaining how they plan to revise? 

Well, I could complain about the massive number of emails I received Sunday evening from students urgently needing answers to questions about Monday's exam--emails that arrived while my cranky internet connection was having some sort of extended hissy fit--but I'm the one who insists on living in a cave in Appalachia cut off from all modern communication technology. What do they want me to do, move to the city? I'm not moving! I like where I live! And besides, figuring out the answers on their own will help my students become more resourceful and resilient--and if their performance on the exam is any indication, it's working.

And I could complain about how little time I have for research and writing this semester thanks to four course preps all requiring lots of student writing, but I'm the one who insisted on teaching four different courses this semester because I don't like repeating myself--and besides, how can I complain when the provost just approved my request for a course release next semester to allow me time to edit a collection of essays on teaching comedy? I ought to be jumping up and down for joy.

Why don't I complain, then, about how hard it was to squeeze the caramel sauce out of the dispenser yesterday at the apple-slice bar on campus? I mean, all these people standing in line to get toppings for their celebratory apple slices, and the caramel sauce dispenser clogs up! What kind of place is this to work for? 

Of course, the apple-slice bar was celebrating Marietta College's making the Honor Roll in 10 out of 12 categories on the Chronicle of Higher Education's Great Colleges to Work For survey, and I'm definitely not complaining about that. Anyone who has been here more than five minutes can remember when this was most definitely not a Great College to Work For, but recent changes have made such an impact on campus that we all deserve a few celebratory apple slices. And if the caramel sauce is a little slow to engage--well, so am I after all these conferences.



 

Just sit down and let 'em argue

I'm sitting in my first-year composition class eavesdropping as my students debate over whether space aliens should destroy humanity, and next hour I'll listen as my Honors students debate whether Odysseus ought to kill all the suitors or let them live. Just another Friday in my first-year writing classes.

It's the end of a long week and I would have been tired enough even if a sore back hadn't awakened me at 4 a.m., so after some preliminaries, I hand the reins of discussion over to my students. They argue about far less important things, so why not make them marshal evidence for human worth? (Or against, as the case may be.)

My composition students have been reading essays about space exploration and advances in technology, but they've also read two essays suggesting that we tend to use technologies (including writing!) to oppress, exploit, and destroy--so much so that any visiting space aliens would be inclined to put us out of our misery for the good of the universe. For their first major essay, due next week, my students have to write a letter to the space alien of their choice arguing that humanity ought to be preserved or destroyed, for reasons they will illustrate with evidence from their reading. I suspect that most of them will argue against destruction, but I'm eager to see what kind of evidence they produce.

And the Honors students have reached the point in The Odyssey where Odysseus is home, in disguise, and plotting vengeance, and the narrative is constructed to encourage us to cheer on the coming bloodbath. But I want students to take a step back and think about what they've read about the importance of hospitality and the value of self-control, to think about the horrific violence Odysseus has encountered and the way he carefully distinguishes his own civilized actions from those of the "uncivilized" creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus. I'll assign my students to groups, one arguing in favor of killing all the suitors and the other arguing for a less violent solution, supporting their claims with evidence from the text. This is a group capable of arguing passionately about the Oxford comma, so I'm sure they'll defend their choices with rigor.

I have drafts coming in in one class today and in the other three next week so I'll have my hands full of student writing for the foreseeable future. Today, though, I just want to take a seat, shut my mouth, and let my students show me that human beings are capable of using words to do something other than oppress, exploit, and destroy.   

Spheres, tears, all these years

I saw a few of my students at the brief 9/11 memorial event on campus this morning, and I wonder what they think of all the fuss. It's interesting teaching a course on 9/11 literature to students whose memories of the event are dim and fleeting, who may come to view 9/11 the way many of us view Pearl Harbor: a sad thing happened to a bunch of people I don't know a long time ago but what does it have to do with me?

We've been reading articles on trauma theory alongside poems and personal accounts of the events of September 11, 2001, and if nothing else my students can see that it no one poem, story, or account can capture the magnitude of the attacks or the nuances of various responses. We've seen how the event has been mediated, manipulated, manhandled, commodified, fetishized, and idolized, and we've only just begun our studies.

One question that keeps coming up deals with debris: how do we handle the aftermath? Do we hide the wounds and broken things or put them on display? And who gets to decide what bits of twisted steel or charred paper are worthy of treasuring and which ones will land in some forgotten landfill?

When we visited the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan in May, we were drawn to a battered, misshapen sculpture--Fritz Koenig's The Sphere, which was recovered from the rubble following the 9/11 attacks. I suppose it would have been possible to restore the sculpture to pristine condition, but instead it stands witness to the trauma that the nation suffered, a visible reminder that we are all wounded even if our scars are not visible.

And this morning at the campus memorial I was reminded of the 9/11 survivors we met in Manhattan, family members for whom the names on the memorial are more than just a list of the lost, and I thought of the words of the Shepherd in Jose Saramago's novel All the Names: "One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger." After all these years, we're still weeping.

 

I've got my sea-legs under me as the semester sails on

Three weeks into the new semester after eight months away from the classroom, I can finally make it through a four-class teaching day without feeling as if I've run a marathon. The physical demands of standing and waving my arms in front of a room full of students seem to get more exhausting every year, but three weeks in I'm getting along swimmingly.

Not that there aren't problems. I've seen some legitimate problems, including the word "ligitimit" in a student paper, which hurt my eyes. Also "Thanks for you're help." (Your welcome!)  Also "You don't really believe in the moon landing, do you?" But I've read enough student writing to know that it's about the same as usual, with less punctuation. One of these days we'll get back to the ancient practice of simply running all our words together with no indication of how they're connected, atwhichpointI'llretire.

I'm pleased with my committee appointment--tenure and promotion, with the opportunity to observe colleagues' classes and make a real difference in their lives. My favorite committee! Especially since I'm not chair--and the person who is chair knows how to run an efficient meeting. Gold stars all around.

I'm still getting used to my new office laptop computer, which arrived just before classes started. It's superior to the old one in every way except that keyboard is louder and--well, the only way I can describe it is clickier. It's also hard to tell whether the computer has entirely shut down, and one time I put the laptop into its little protective bag when I didn't realize it was still humming along and then I drove for a couple of hours, at which point I extracted a laptop on which I could have fried an egg. Not a happy moment. But the laptop survived and now I'm more careful about making sure it's off before I take it away.

And so we muddle along, inserting commas and deleting apostrophes and refraining from throwing erasers at intransigent students in the middle of class. It's a living. And now that I've got my teaching legs back under me, I may be able to go on doing this a little bit longer. (UntilIhavetoretire.)

 

Stop me before I do something I'll regret (unless I won't)

So I had this brilliant idea yesterday but I need someone to tell me all the reasons why it's a bad idea because I can't think of any and that scares me. Okay, I can think of a few downsides, but I find it really easy to dismiss them, which also scares me. There must be good reasons why my brilliant idea actually stinks, but I can't see them so I need someone to show me before I do someone really stupid, unless it's not really stupid, which would be fine by me.

In a nutshell: I'm scheduled to teach an upper-level literature class next semester called Representative American Writers, and I want my students to spend the entire semester reading Colson Whitehead. Just think: we could read John Henry Days, Zone One, The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys, and maybe Sag Harbor, along with some short essays and maybe a piece of The Colossus of New York. That reading list would make me happy, and if making me happy were the measure of a great course, then this one would be awesome. 

This course comes up on the schedule about every three years, and the past two or three times the class has studied Stephen Crane and Kate Chopin. Now the advantages of this setup are clear: Crane and Chopin produced a limited amount of work, so we can focus in depth on The Red Badge of Courage and The Awakening and then read a zillion short pieces; they worked intensely in a limited time frame, so my students develop a deep understanding of American culture in the 1890s, a fairly interesting period; and there's such a variety of readings that they're bound to find something they like. Also, sticking with Crane and Chopin would mean simply updating the old syllabus, while switching to a different topic would require a total redesign.

But I think Colson Whitehead would be worth the effort. I've never taught an entire semester on a living author before--in fact, the closest I've ever come was when I taught the course on Flannery O'Connor (who died in 1964, so not close at all). I want my upper-level English majors to spend some time understanding historical contexts, and Whitehead provides plenty of opportunities by evoking specific historical eras and events, especially in The Underground Railroad, John Henry Days, and The Nickel Boys. And while reading a big pile of novels can be intimidating, Whitehead's novels differ so significantly in content and style that boredom should not be a problem.

Now for the downsides: 

• A course that focuses on only one author is great for students who enjoy that author's work but not so great for those who don't. 
• I have taught John Henry Days twice in African-American Lit classes and, with a few exceptions, students loathed it. They had trouble doing the work Whitehead requires, making connections between multiple story lines set in distant time periods, and they were frustrated by the lack of resolution. John Henry Days explores some themes that remain important throughout Whitehead's later novels so I wouldn't want to leave it off the syllabus, but I would need to find a way to teach it so that students aren't left in the dust, confused and angry.
• New syllabus. New assignments. New course materials. All from scratch, starting now, when I am up to my elbows in current classes.

There must be more, right? Someone ought to be able to tell me a really good reason not to toss out a course that worked fairly well to try something completely different. Please, help me out here! Tell me why my brilliant idea isn't so brilliant--but you better say it really loudly, because internally I'm jumping up and down and screaming with glee over the opportunity to teach Colson Whitehead.  

Seasonal shift: spiders, fog, words

We have reached the season of spiders, when I keep a broom handy so I can sweep the spider webs away every time I open the front door, but then I arrive home after a long weekend away and find webs blocking my path and no access to the broom on the other side. Soon the larger spiders will creep in through cracks and crevices (abundant in an old house) while others hitch a ride on the potted plants when they're brought indoors for the winter, and we'll have reached the season of stomping on creepy-crawlies a dozen times a day.

And we've reached the season of fog in the morning, fog so thick along the river that turning onto the highway is an act of faith, fog that creeps into my bones with a chill that bears no warning of the sunshine waiting to blast me in the face later when I step out of my office building for lunch. On campus this morning the fog was so thick that it swallowed up the sunflower blossoms looming overhead, blossoms that will continue to attract birds well into the season when everything green turns brown and deathly.

And we've reached the season of fogs of words that blur further into meaninglessness the more I read, the sentences stocked with almost-right words and phrases that make me scratch my head and wonder how anyone could live 18 years and not realize that horizon and verizon are not synonyms. Right now the words trickle in slowly, but in a week or two the flood will come and the fog will thicken and the spiders will invade and when I look out the window seeking relief, I'll see only the lost verizon. 

Horizon. 
Whatever.