A step-by-step guide to writing a step-by-step guide

Draw a circle on the whiteboard.

Easy enough to accomplish as long as you know what the word circle means. But what if you're a visitor from an alternate universe consisting entirely of straight lines and right angles? What if you've never seen a circle, never heard of a circle, never held a marker in your hand to draw a circle on the whiteboard?

Tell our visitor how to draw a circle, I told another acting as instructor, But use only words--and turn your back so you can't see what he's doing.

We tried this exercise in my Nature Writing class with two different pairs of students, each pair made up of a cosmic visitor unfamiliar with the circle concept and an instructor explaining how to draw a circle. The instructors used various methods, from defining a circle in the abstract to comparing a circle to other non-circular things to providing step-by step instructions for hand movements designed to result in a circle on the whiteboard. The visiting aliens followed the instructions to the letter but produced a dotted line in the shape of a mountain range or a squiggle resembling an upper-case N. 

Then we tried something similar with a more common task: Your classmate has never learned to tie her shoes--lead her through the steps, using only words. The classmate followed instructions carefully but ended up with a twisted mess of laces.

What's going on here?

My Nature Writing students had turned in their first major essay yesterday so I wanted to give them a lightweight but thought-provoking class activity aiming toward the next major project: an essay explaining a natural process. I wanted them to think about what's required to help a reader understand a process, so we started with some very simple exercises in giving instructions--Draw a circle. Tie your shoes. It's not as easy to explain as you might think, especially if you're limited only to words. (Try it!) 

We talked about methods for making a process comprehensible--establish common vocabulary, compare the process to something more familiar--but then we talked about the why question. A biology exam might ask students to explain the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, but outside of a testing situation, why would anyone need to know?

Then I showed them Margaret Renkl's recent essay from the New York Times on "How to Count Butterflies." She helps us understand various processes in the butterfly life cycle for a very clear purpose: so we can help protect them from extinction. Explain a natural process to a specific audience, making sure they know why it matters and what's at stake. That's the next assignment in a nutshell, and if our practice exercises over the next couple of weeks are successful, then my students ought to produce something more convincing than a squiggle on a whiteboard or a tangle of shoelaces.    

Next time I'll leave the red pencil at home

I appreciate the student who raised his hand in class and said, "Planetarium--I can never remember whether that's about plants or planets." Sure, we all got a good laugh out of it, but I wish more people were willing to speak up and admit when they're confused instead of nodding knowingly about things they know nothing about. 

I also appreciate the student who, when asked why a character in Tara Westover's Educated had said some particularly outrageous thing, raised his hand and said, "Because he's crazy." Yes! As I wanted to tell the rest of the class--especially the ones avoiding eye contact--"If you don't realize the dude is nuts, you're not paying attention."

Yesterday at a big meeting I was tempted to get out my red pencil--the imaginary one I always carry, long enough to reach up to a theater marquee to remove unnecessary apostrophes--and correct some errors on slides presented by people I probably shouldn't be correcting in public. First I wanted to correct the spelling of a colleague's name, because why bother congratulating a person if you can't be bothered to spell the person's name correctly? But that's the former journalist in me speaking, the person who breaks out in hives at the recollection of a particularly egregious spelling error.

But then if I'd had my imaginary red pencil with me, I would have wanted to correct some other things, like enrollment numbers and rambling responses and administrative decisions I find ridiculous. These things may not have been errors, but I simply can't accept a world in which such statements can stand unchallenged.

Finally, I was delighted to share with my upper-level writing students this passage from a book I've been slogging my way through:

Nowadays, of course, given all man has learned of their senses, it is easy to see why they should have felt so liberated, so connected to their wild selves, when it appeared: like any crepuscular creatures that possess night vision (whether naturally or through a device), the augmented but still ethereal light of that Moon makes all the usual night sights--whether rustling trees and bushes or prey and predators--show up brilliantly. 

My students were apologizing for their first drafts, worried because they weren't quite perfect. I pointed out that the definition of a draft is a piece of writing with something wrong with it, and then I pointed out that the sentence above was written by a professional author and published by a reputable press that presumably employs competent editors, and yet not one of us could make sense of it. (Does it help if you know they refers to cats and when it appeared refers to the full moon? Not much.) If a sentence can pass through so many brilliant minds without becoming comprehensible, then why should we expect all our sentences to hit their marks on the first try?

So here's my tepid cheer for the presence of error in the world. Let's speak up and admit that we don't know everything! We're all still learning (I hope), so let's admit our confusion out loud and help each other toward understanding.

Updating, infinitely

My classroom computer greets me with the Spinning Circle of Doom and a message saying Updating--please wait, so I wait, because what else can I do? But while I'm waiting I zone out and let my mind wander and I wonder why I can't have an Updating message pop up on my forehead when I'm trying to process new information--in fact, why can't we all take time for Updating, especially in the middle of trying times when we could use a little hiatus to bite our tongue and think before spouting off something we'll later regret.

The enforced stillness while Updating is a good time to ruminate, to slow down the flow of repartee until our brain cells can catch up to our emotions. I know some people who ought to deploy the Updating tactic instead of heading straight for the nuclear option, and if everyone would occasionally take a few moments for Updating, maybe some of the quiet voices in the back would have a chance to be heard.

Of course problems might arise if people get stuck in an Updating loop, shutting down all communications while a glitchy system doubles back on itself infinitely. But that's a risk I'd be willing to take if it would encourage everyone to listen more carefully, ruminate deeply, and measure words carefully before spouting off. 

Now someone just needs to invent the app.  

Mailing it in?

I'm not, I think--or at least I hope I'm not. Mailing it in, that is. Last week I submitted the official notification that I intend to retire at the end of Fall 2026 semester, just over a year from now. I wanted to give the Powers That Be sufficient time to find an appropriate person to replace me in each of my three campus roles in hopes that I can assist with a smooth transition, but I suspect that we'll see the usual series of delays followed by a frantic attempt to fill in with adjuncts. 

I'm aware that I have no control over how the institution decides to fill the gaps created by my retirement, but I can control how hard I work for my final couple of semesters. Does being a lame duck give me permission to slack off?

Well, yes and no.

I'm teaching two new classes this fall and my students are keeping me on my toes, so I'm certainly not slacking off there. And I'm trying to plan campus events to enrich teaching and highlight faculty research, though it's a little difficult when we're suffering a campus-wide epidemic of not responding to emails. I'd like to encourage more participation in these events, but I'm not interested in holding guns to my colleagues' heads, even if I can afford to burn a few bridges. 

So I'm still working hard and doing my part, but there are certain discussions on campus from which I have chosen to abstain. Do I care about the finer points of the campus calendar for the three years after I retire? Not a whit, so don't ask me to respond to any online surveys or attend another meeting. Am I eager to get worked up about the suggestion that it's time to consider revising our General Education curriculum? I've fought that fight too many times before--go recruit someone else. Do I worry about whether I'm producing enough scholarship, publishing enough articles, or providing enough service to the campus community? Well, I don't intend to fill out an annual review form ever again, so who will even know how much I contribute?

I've also slacked off in regard to complaining about conditions we're forced to endure. My campus-owned laptop has so many crotchets that I've had to develop all kinds of annoying workarounds, but nobody's going to spend money on a new laptop for my final semesters so I'm biting my tongue and doing my best with what I have. Likewise the unbearable cold in my office, the nonfunctioning clocks in the classrooms, and the stained ceiling tiles all over my building. If I were planning to stick around longer I might put some energy into lobbying to spiff up the learning environment, but at this point I'm just done with all that. If the College has been willing to put up with my repeated complaints for the past 25 years, I can probably just grin and bear it for a few semesters.

But there are a few areas where I'll put in some extra effort over the next twelve months. For one thing, I want my final semester of teaching to include something memorable, a class that allows me to dig into great literature while challenging students to think more deeply. I don't know who or what I'll be teaching next fall, but I sincerely hope it's not all first-year classes.

And I want Emeritus status--not that it counts for anything, but because I've earned it. We're in the process of changing the process for Emeritus status so it's not at all clear how to make that happen, but I'm hopeful that at some point someone will intervene in my favor. 

And I want a party. There's no money for parties so for the past couple of years retirees have been allowed to slink off into the sunset without a peep, but I intend to go out with a bang even if I have to pay for it myself. I want cake and music and poetry and speeches and all my favorite people gathered round, and if I can't get that, I might just threaten to stay until I can.

Just joking. Definitely retiring at the end of next year because my eyes are too fatigued to see to the end of the day, much less the end of the decade. The end is in sight, but I can't spend too much time looking toward it while I have all these student papers to read and events to plan and nonresponsive colleagues to track down. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it--at least a little while longer. 

Illuminating "Illuminati"

Yesterday I showed my first-year seminar students the following definition of the word Illuminati: "Comprised of several of the world's most powerful heroes, the Illuminati is a secret organization that shapes the superhuman world and protects Earth from catastrophic threats."

"Is this what Tara Westhover is talking about when she refers to the Illuminati in Educated?" I asked. No, they said, and when I asked why, one said, "Because superheroes aren't real."

I suppose that's as good an answer as any. I pointed out that the definition I'd shown them came from a web page produced by Marvel, so it's relevant within the Marvel universe but not necessarily elsewhere.  

Then I showed another definition of Illuminati that went into great detail about an eighteenth-century Bavarian named Adam Weishaupt who had a penchant for secret societies. My students were pretty sure Tara Westhover didn't have Adam Weishaupt in mind in Educated, but they struggled to pin down a reason until I pointed out the source of the information: The Catholic Encyclopedia.

Westover's memoir, of course, concerns neither superheroes nor Catholic history but instead a father who's obsessed by conspiracy theories and convinced that going to college means being brainwashed by the Illuminati. Many of my students had read the assigned chapters with only a vague idea of what Illuminati might mean, but at least they're reading! And the word provided a good object lesson to introduce the primary purpose of the first-year seminar: developing information literacy and critical thinking skills.

They had more difficulty last week when I gave them a photocopy of the first few chapters of Educated and then required them to discuss them in class, for points. The discussion went really well, but I'd given them no information about the author or context so some students struggled to use the correct pronouns or place the scenes in the correct time frame. 

Afterward I asked a few students why they'd assumed the narrator was male and they said the character was doing "guy things," like working in a junkyard and messing around with guns. But I was more interested in my students' struggles to determine the historical context of the passage, with some insisting it must take place more than 100 years ago because the characters were relying on midwives and herbal tinctures instead of doctors and hospitals. A student who had spent time in the military said the reference to MRE's means it had to date from after the Vietnam conflict, which was progress, but it was only after I made them look up Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge that they got the date right--1992. One student wanted to know why, then, the characters act as if they're living in "pioneer times." Really great question! Let's talk about that some more.

We've got quite a lot of Educated ahead of us so we'll have plenty of time to ask questions and learn to evaluate the reliability of answers, an activity that would surely lead Westover's father to insist that I'm a member of the Illuminati intent on brainwashing students. But I can live with that. If I can motivate a few students to stretch their minds beyond what they're so certain they already know, then my work here is done.  

Oak, kay?

The massive oak hit the driveway with a thud, sending up a cloud of dust and debris that coated the resident woodsman's fuzzy arms until he looked like a sawdust-encrusted beast. He is a beast with the chainsaw, cutting a huge wedge out of the oak tree's trunk before making the fatal cut to send it sprawling. 

The last time we needed to remove a tree that big, it was surrounded by power lines and so we relied on professionals, who charged thousands of dollars but left us with wood to heat our house all winter. This time the tree was far from power lines but fairly close to the edge of the garage, so my husband rigged up ropes and chains to the tractor to pull the tree in a safe direction, straight across the driveway. Then he went to work with the chainsaw to cut away bits and branches until only the thickest part of the tree was blocking the drive.

And that's when the chainsaw stopped working.

So the tree will continue to block our driveway until the chainsaw gets fixed. We can get around it by driving down into the lower meadow, as long as the weather stays dry so the meadow doesn't get mushy. But anyone coming up from the road won't be able to see the tree until they're right on top of it, and then there's nothing to be done but back up down the hill and venture through the meadow, if they dare.

Ah, the joys of country life. Always another adventure.

 

Coming down near the garage--but not on it.

Still standing tall

  

Laboring on Labor Day, perhaps for the penultimate time

I'm required to labor on Labor Day--but not too hard. While my blog takes a holiday, here are my annual listing of Rules for Laboring on Labor Day that I published some years back:

1. Dress down. They can make me teach on Labor Day, but they can't make me dress up.

2. Pack your own picnic. No way I'm eating at my desk when the rest of the world is outside grilling burgers!

3. Don't begrudge the revelers their revels. The people who clean our bathrooms, make our photocopies, and answer our phones work hard for very little money and deserve every minute of their day off. I do not wish they were here working, but I do wish I could join them on their day off.

4. Office hours? Are you kidding me? No one comes to my office hours on a normal day, so what are the chances that anyone will show up on Labor Day?

5. Enjoy the commute. No public school = no school buses holding up traffic, no 20-mile-per-hour zones, and no teens racing around curves on country roads.

6. Be there. Nobody's fooled by the Labor Day flu; if my students are required to be in class on Labor Day, then I'm going to be there with them.

7. Don't try to explain it. I know we have reasons for teaching on Labor Day, and some of them may even be valid ("We can't shortchange Monday labs!"), but the real reason we teach on Labor Day is that we've never been sufficiently motivated to change it.