Radical Grading

I'm obsessed with the notion of grading at the moment.  I hate having to assign a specific value to a paper, and I also hate the pressure that grades put on students because they have the potential to cultivate students who work for a grade rather than for knowledge building.  Yet, as I'm required to grade, I am trying to be as reasonable and equitable as possible.  I use a strict criteria that students must meet, and I reward complex thinking even if the writing isn't up to par.  The problem, of course, is that complex thinking is harder than I realized it would be to identify when the writing is poor.

So, I've been thinking about how I'm going to deal with this since grading is a significant part of the work that I'm getting myself into.  One idea I've been thinking about today is the idea of sticking with my grading criteria, sharing it with students on the first day of class next quarter, and offering a caveat: grade your own paper before your turn it in.  The easy answer would be to allow them to submit a re-write.  The problem with this is purely a time issue; I don't think I could reasonably look at re-writes given my responsibilities during the quarter.  However, what if I had students turn in some kind of assessment form along with the paper they turn in that says something about where they think they fell on the grading scale using my criteria?  

It might give students a sense of agency with their work and more importantly, allow them to think critically about their papers as readers rather than writers.  I've gotta do a little research, but I'm compelled by this idea.  It could be problematic when the student's grade is far higher than the one I would give, but it would be a chance for me to offer specific feedback of an area requiring improvement that they might otherwise be blind to....  Anyway, it's really got me thinking.

Grading Papers...

is a race against time, and to make matters worse, I'm a really grumpy grader.  It's not because I think I'm brilliant and that the students I'm grading will never live up to my expectations or something like that.  Not at all.  In fact, reading their papers makes me empathize with the difficulty and complexity of expressing oneself.  In their writing, I see so many of the same errors that I make.  So, it's not from some grand high up position that I look down on these papers.  It's just frustrating when you have limited time and you keep reading for pages and pages and cannot figure out what in the heck someone is talking about or arguing for/against.

To be frank, grading just isn't nearly as "fun" as I thought it would be.  It takes me about an hour to grade each paper, and I have 30 students, so within the week that papers are turned in, I have to prepare to teach my section, complete my own reading/writing/ homework, AND grade all of the papers.  Let's just say that these pressures don't bring out the most generous attitude and commentary that I have to offer. The time pressure sets up an intense mood surrounding the papers as something I just have to get through rather than a process that I can enjoy and use as a way to get to know the students better, ya know.  

I'm really trying to fight this attitude, though.  This second round of papers is much better than the first because, in general, I can see how students' ideas are progressing after having read their first paper.  I can see them engaging more deeply in the material and finding ways to more clearly express their analysis.  It's just hard to maintain that front while I'm finding it far more difficult than I ever dreamed it would be to not fall into a deep malaise about the mountain of work that seems to always lay ahead of me.  Time management is part of it, but there is also a skill of knowing when to stop that I have not yet developed.  I'm starting to realize that I will never get on top of the workload...and that the best thing I can do for myself is to figure out how to manage the impossibility rather than try to conquer it.  

With that said, any and all tips for managing the impossible are more than welcome.

Toussaint Louverture

My work for one of my seminars and that of the class I am TA'ing for are converging at points because I am working on civil war related writings.  One figure, Toussaint Louverture, the Haitian Revolutionary, is becoming an important figure in both of these areas.  I really didn't know much about him before, and it's really too bad that I haven't encountered his name up to now because he is an important figure in history.

I thought I would share this video on his life that was done by PBS because it is a high quality segment on Haiti as the only country to have a successful slave revolution.  It's unique position in history and its tragic recreation of the same inequalities it originally sought to do away with makes it a story worth knowing.  I'm only able to upload a clip, but the full 50-minute show can be found here: http://vimeo.com/48343000

Workin' on it!

About a year ago to the day, I started working on a 20-page paper discussing failed roads and mobility in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.  After writing that paper, I decided to embark on a project (which most of you know already) about citizenship in Parable of the Sower and its sequel, Parable of the Talents by thinking of citizenship as a form of prosthesis, which became a 60-page master's thesis.  In the meantime, I was accepted to a local conference and presented a 6-page version of the original paper on mobility, but inserted many good insights from the thesis project.

Now, I've just turned in a 12-page "version" of this same paper, which will become a 20-25 page version within the next three weeks.  You'd think I might be bored of this topic or something, but truthfully, I'm not!  Every time I sit down to do a significant revision I learn something that I didn't know before--about literary criticism and theory and about the novels themselves.  For example, my original thesis discussion involved a section on virtual reality in which I looked at how virtual reality breeds passive citizens.  Now, I've taken the passive citizens and virtual reality combo and looked at it with a more sophisticated theoretical framework, and I've become aware of the subversive nature of virtual reality.  I just re-read what I turned in today, and I can already see some of the things I suspect the professor will recommend that I reconsider when I revise it into the 20-25 page paper by the end of the quarter.

The previous academic programs I've been in have never encouraged rewriting something over time; in part because they were terminal programs with no expectation of publishing articles.  Now, I guess I'm getting a tiny taste of the process for publishing an article, which includes peer review, advisor feedback, multiple revisions, and multiple more reviews.  I'm hoping that these ideas will make their way into print at some point...if my stamina for staying interested in this project for a year now is any indication, then I should be able to make it through.

The joy of tangents while researching!

I'm currently researching a project about W.E.B Du Bois' most underrated work (in my humble opinion): Black Reconstruction in America.  In my research, I was reading a report to Congress from 1865 regarding the conditions of the post-civil war south.  Among many other things, the report talks about the oaths of allegiance that the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864 required of all former confederates and the fact that they were alternately mocked or beloved throughout the south and encouraged in newspapers.

I was wondering what the content of that oath was, but apparently it didn't actually have much content.  It was simply a card that one signed stating quite literally "oath of allegiance to the United States."  Here is a picture of such a card:

The pledge of allegiance that is said in U.S. classrooms seems in sentiment, at least, to have extended from the rifts experienced during the civil war since that is when oaths began to be required for certain people's political participation.  

Then I got to wondering when it was that a bunch of what could be considered propaganda got thrown into the language of the pledge of allegiance and when it became necessary to say "under God", for example, and it turns out that a representative from Michigan sponsored a bill in 1954 to add it in and voila, it's what we have today.   Oddly enough, the religious part of the pledge was added in by the government, but the original language of the pledge was not actually developed by the government.  To my surprise, the pledge was authored by a guy named Francis Bellamy who was actually a Christian Socialist.  He published the pledge of allegiance in 1892 to commemorate Columbus Day in a magazine for children based in Boston called The Youth's Companion.  The pledge of allegiance was proliferated in schools, but wasn't actually adopted by congress until 1942 in the middle of WWII; the legislation was intended "to codify and emphasize existing customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag of the United States of America." Congress also included another change...the original stance for reciting the pledge was with the right arm outstretched as pictured here:

Given the timing of 1942 and the eery similarity to the Nazi salute, congress changed the stance to hand-over-heart.  I knew some of this, but it is still jarring to see American school kids in the picture above making that salute.  What a strange little history, right? 

Thank You, Jon Stewart!

Just as I've been wondering when the mass media will start talking about reality and whatnot, Jon Stewart drops some American history knowledge on a particularly delusional member of the media in a segment called "It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Best of Times."

Apparently, I cannot embed the video here, but you can look at the clip here -- it is pretty awesome:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-15-2012/it-was-the-best-of-times--it-was-the-best-of-times

Dispelling American myths is one of my favorite pastimes!  Isn't it refreshing to talk about the truth--whether personal or political?!  I don't like the idea of living in a country where we can't be honest about our past and our present and what they mean for our future.  I really liked this segment.

Day 2 of getting back into the swing...

Day 2 of biking was another disaster, but I'm sticking with it.  By disaster, I mean that I made it 2/3 of the way up the hill to campus (remember that 750 foot incline in the span of 3 miles) and really could not go anymore.  I moved onto the sidewalk and out of the bike lane to give myself the option to get off and walk.  I got hot and tried to take off my helmet while still on the bike and crashed into the weeds.  Then, I had to walk the bike the final mile because I couldn't make it uphill any further!  

If only I had the four volt: 

Ahhh...but you know what, I felt GREAT afterward.  I felt tired as all hell and really out of shape, but I also felt too tired to be the anxious mess I have been lately.  In fact, I was too tired to be annoyed with the people who typically annoy me in my grad classes, which was a really good feeling.  Basically, extreme physical exertion is helping me to be a better person, and I'm totally down with that.  It seems like my body is charged with some kind of anxious energy right now that is going to go somewhere, and I would rather it spill out through my sweat on the hill than through verbal lashings or intense feelings of dislike toward other people.  

Getting back into the swing...

One of the many obvious pitfalls of being over-stressed and over-committed for the past few years has been my ability for physical activity.  I've been trying to get back into the activities I used to enjoy (Boot Camp over the summer, Step Aerobics at the start of the semester, etc.) and nothing has stuck.  I'm still working on finding my exercise groove and am finally trying to get over the idea of getting back to my self of years ago and looking to the present to figure out what I want to be engaged in for physical activity NOW.

I've been biking around a lot with "sun of my life" and biking HOME from school (after taking the uber-convenient bike shuttle to campus)...and today, I've started in on a new trial period of biking up the 750 foot elevation incline from my house to campus.  I did it today, and it was ridiculously hard.  I had to walk my bike the final stretch up the hill as my quads could barely keep going...but I actually enjoyed it in the same way that I used to find running really difficult but worth it for the feeling afterward.  

It seems like in times of stress, my body has less energy to put out there and yet, that extreme level of exertion is exactly what I need when I am stressed.  That's an easy logical rational connection to make, but when you are stressed, that level of physical exhaustion is about the last thing I can convince myself to do!  So, it is important to keep balancing my personal interests and the commitment to doing things I enjoy with the fact that not giving myself the choice to say no is often what helps me to push myself in positive ways.  For example, I biked to campus this morning because I decided it wasn't an option to say I was too tired or whatever to do it.

Now that I am writing this I am seeing a big connection between the PhD program itself and high impact exercise.  I continue to keep in mind that I am here by choice and not because I have to be, but at the same time, by not letting myself make an easy exit when things get really tough (like they are right now) I can push my mind into new insights and learnings that I never conceived of before.  

"Union, Justice, and Confidence"

In 1902, Louisiana adopted "Union, Justice, and Confidence" as its state motto.  How much does it live up to those values?  Well, 13,000 people can't speak for the whole state, but they do speak to a certain section of it, and I just learned that my home state of Louisiana is starting a petition (with 13,000 signatures already collected) to secede from the union in response to the 2012 election.  I am nothing short of embarrassed, appalled, and not that surprised -- all at the same time.

It is hard for me to talk about this because every assertion I make is fraught with condemnations against my people -- my family, friends, and community.  What I can talk about is how this confirms the magnitude of racist thinking that is active in my home state.  It amazes me that the tragedy of Katrina, for example (to use the easiest and most well-known example), has only served to sharpen racist sentiments rather than unite people across race and class boundaries.  I mean, there has surely been some bonding among individuals, but as a state entity, the people of Louisiana are woefully divided...and more so than the division of our country at large.  

Orleans parish, which covers much of New Orleans, voted 80.3% for Obama, and surprisingly, even East Baton Rouge parish went 50.8% in favor of Obama.  Out of 64 parishes, 10 voted for Obama and 54 voted for Romney.  Not only that, but 16 of those 54 parishes voted more than 70% in favor of Romney.  I'm not at all suggesting that communities who vote for Romney are automatically racist.  Far from that.  What I'm interested in is the fact that, according to census data, the parishes that voted for Obama are communities in which 50% or more of the population is black.  Compare that to a place like my home parish, Lafourche Parish, in which 81.1 % of the population is white, and the parish as a whole voted 73.2% in favor of Romney.

It's obvious to me that given these numbers, race has a significant influence on how people are voting.  Given the suffering that many Louisianans are experiencing after the major oil spill and the economic downturn, it is amazing to me how many people are voting against their own class interests.  I am not jumping to any major conclusions, but I am seeing that racism is playing a huge part in this equation.  This petition for secession is, in my opinion, nothing more than an articulation of this disquieting racist thinking.

The Global South

So, Puerto Rico voted to become a state this week...although that is only a half-truth as this Huffington Post article points out.  Regardless, isn't it kinda strange that no one in the mass media is talking about it?  At all?

I'm particularly interested in this topic right now because the class that I've been TA'ing is  centered in the idea of America as an empire, which the period of time at the turn of the 20th century illustrates most clearly (Puerto Rico was invaded by the U.S. in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and taken as a possession).  It's a fascinating time in U.S. history that I, for one, did not learn a whole lot about in U.S. history classes.  The national history I learned in high school basically went from the Civil War to the idea that Reconstruction was a failure and then, straight on into the 20th century.  

Anyway I'm re-learning this history and seeing a lot of complexity that I've never understood before.  This is the same time period that the U.S. became involved in the Phillipines, Panama, etc.  In a way, I'm also learning more deeply about the history of my hometown since a major figure from Thibodaux, Supreme Court Justice Edward Douglass White, was instrumental in shaping the relationship we now have with Puerto Rico based on his role in the "Insular Cases."  The Philippines became independent after WWII...I wonder what U.S. crisis it will take for Puerto Rico to get the kind of government that the people want--within the U.S. or independent from the U.S.

 

Speaking of Silence...

My last post was about silence, and I must have needed some because I have not been inspired to blog about anything for a while.  I'm not necessarily inspired to do so today, but I figure that I should either write something soon or shut this thing down.

One thing that's been on my mind a lot lately (mostly because of the directions my classes are going in) is what I might call the "particulars" of American racism...and of course, the re-election of Barack Obama has brought my thinking out of a specific academic context and into the very real world.  I feel extremely proud of our country for who we elected in 2012, especially the amazing increase in female politicians that will be changing the discourse in the Senate with 20 female senators!!!!!

What's really unsettling to me in spite of these victories is the amount of racism and sexism that is still so prevalent in our culture and manages to keep this country polarized.  The thing is, I hear a lot of direct connections being made between racism and Barack Obama's election and sexism and women's issues in politics.  What I hear a lot less about is the influence of these prejudices on nearly ALL social policies like tax rates, healthcare, welfare, social security, etc.  It's not an easy direct line to draw, but that is precisely what makes the role of these backward forms of thinking so unnerving and difficult to unravel.  

As one example, it's not because Obama is black that "Obamacare" opponents are instantiated in racist thinking, although that is one sad truth that even Yahoo! news reported on.  It's also rooted in the fact that white people, men in particular, have enjoyed a privileged position in this country ever since the end of the 17th century when race was essentially "created" by establishing slavery along lines of skin color rather than class.  If you are interested in this history, there is an outstanding article by historian Barbara Jeanne Fields entitled "Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America" that I highly recommend.  

One of many connections between racism and anti-healthcare positions is the fact that free market competition has always been a model that benefits privileged people the most...and it benefits them at the expense of most minority groups.  Our country's history of disenfranchising minority groups is long and deep and complicated, and it is difficult to sift through the rhetoric of political positions to see how racism influences these positions.  

I'd like to see the media doing more of this.  I'm wondering if the outcomes of this election and the clearly delusional Republican pundits assessments of facts that predicted a Romney win even as the election was called for Obama will signal the need for more attention to exposing the deep-seated ideological issues that shape the conservative politics of social issues....

The Silent Floor

The silent floor in the library is turning out to be my happy place for productive, uninterrupted, focused, get-it-done work spot.  It is so hard to find silence these days that this place is like academic sacred ground as far as I'm concerned.

Our culture is so full of chatter all the time that spaces dedicated to silence are increasingly hard to find.  The library where I used to work made it a point to celebrate the library as a social hotspot on campus, and even the Santa Cruz Public Library advertises "Turns Out the Library Has Nothing to Do with Silence."  Even the quiet floor has its talkers...and I'll admit that I'm usually the person that walks over and politely reminds them that this is the quiet floor and to please shut the f*ck up!  

I'm a talker, but I need the balance of quiet at times as much as I need conversation at other times.  I'm not trying to be nostalgic or anything, but in my undergraduate days, you could hear a pin drop in the silent area of the library where I would study.  In fact, I used to also spend a lot of time in communal reading rooms as well which weren't designated silent, but that were very quiet with only an occasional greeting or whisper to be heard.  Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it actually feels like the music in coffeehouses is louder than it used to be as well....

Given how hard it's been to seek out a silent place to focus in on deep study, I'm wondering how all of this noise is changing the way that the learning environment is changing.  In fact, how does this change general knowledge development for people reading or doing other enriching activities in public places?  It's almost like instead of providing plenty of quiet places for students on campus, there are more places for "group study."  In order to center on his/her work the successful student will have the ability to thrive in an environment of distractions.  

And I have to wonder, what are the consequences of finding fewer and fewer spaces for quietude beyond its effects on students?