The body remembers what the mind forgets

This morning, as I was logging onto Blackboard, my fingers automatically typed my old username from my old school. Don't know why. I hadn't typed that username in more than two years. And it was an assigned username with a weird combination of numbers and letters--not one my mind would remember. But my body did.

That just fascinates me. What else does the body know?

Good things

1. I ran into one of my favorite students EVER today and had a nice lunch with her.

2. I finished a first draft of a report that's been hanging over my head. I usually don't procrastinate on "administrative" writing (I rather like that kind of writing!), but this one involves a sort of...I don't know.... sensitive rhetorical situation. I got the draft done fairly easily, though, and now I wish I hadn't put it off.

3. I got official word yesterday that I'm eligible to apply for tenure next year. Rules have changed around here: we can apply during our fourth academic year, but I started here mid-year (January 2004), and there was some confusion about how my time would be counted. Anyway, it was resolved in my favor: basically, I get to count my first year as a whole year. I even have an actual date: my portfolio will be due January 15, 2007. Woo-hoo.

Writing Assignment: Narrative Collage

In the comments section of my last post, Joanna asked about a "narrative collage" assignment I'd mentioned in a post from last fall. I've cut-and-pasted my assignment handout below. I developed it for my English 111 course, a 5-credit-hour combination of English 101 and 102 for students who score on the highest end of our placement test. Feel free to use and revise! And please give me suggestions for improvement!

Project One: A Narrative Collage
(about 750 - 1000 words)

Aims of the Assignment
-To help you become more familiar with writing processes (prewriting, drafting, getting feedback, revising, editing, publishing)
-To help you develop skills/ techniques for narrative writing (for example: using details, description, dialogue, sensory language)
-To help you develop basic skills for incorporating visual elements into a text
-To help you reflect on your roles in academic, workplace, and other public communities
-To give you practice in producing a text appropriate for a particular audience and purpose

The Assignment
Think of your first project as a kind of collage or quilt about yourself in relation to others in a community. If you ever made a collage about yourself in grade school (as I did several times!), you probably drew or clipped from a magazine several pictures that represented something about you and then assembled them all together to form one image. If you’ve ever made a quilt (or at least looked at one closely), you know that a quilt is a weaving together of several different designs, prints, or patterns to make a whole.

For your first assignment, you’ll create a narrative “collage”—a weaving together of written vignettes and visual images. Your collage should illustrate and reflect on your role in a particular academic, workplace, or other community. You’ll think back through your own history and pull out several events, anecdotes, and images that will tell your readers something about where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and who you are as a student, a worker, or a citizen. You can narrate your experiences as a member of one community (for example, by focusing just on your experiences as a worker), or you can weave together stories from several community experiences.

There are several options you might take in structuring your text—or quilting together your story. We’ll discuss those options in class by reading examples in our textbook, as well as example papers written by former students. We’ll also discuss ways to bring your experiences to life for your readers.

If you want, you may post your collage on your blog for others to read, enjoy, and learn from.

Evaluation
In evaluating your project, I’ll consider the criteria on the ENGL 111 rubric. I'll be looking especially at how well you:

-Hold your audience’s interest (through the use of engaging openings, vivid details, etc.)
-Reflect on your membership in a particular community
-Focus, organize, and design your collage
-Achieve clarity in terms of style, sentence structure, mechanics, punctuation, etc.

Schedule
I'll post under the HOMEWORK button on Blackboard a detailed schedule of reading, prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing assignments.

Important dates:
A draft of your collage for peer review: due Weds., Oct. 5.

A draft for teacher review and a tentative grade: due Friday, Oct. 7.

A final draft: due one week from the date on which you get your teacher-reviewed draft back.

4 poems...

... three by my developmental comp students in response to this assignment (posted with students' permission).

Update: and one by me, also in response to the assignment. (Pi, I'm trying to be more brave!)

I am
by Christina Burns

I am the windy city, Austin Blvd., el trains, and subways.
I am Richmond, Bluegrass, the derby, and red dirt.

I am hula hoops, Barbie dolls, and sliding down the stairs in a suit case.
I am mud pies, hay rides, and climbing trees.

I am Italian beefs smothered in cheese and sweet peppers
Gyros with cucumber sauce, and jue-town with extra mustard.
I am beef hash, homemade jam, and sausages.

I am Marshill and Concord Baptist church,
Sunday mornings with hot combs, fluffy
socks and jellies.

I am "put up or shut up,"
"If you cry a river I'll either swim or drown,"
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket,"
and "Don't let the green grass fool ya."

I am the heart of the USA.
I am corner stores with 25 cent bags of chips and grape juices.

I am the best of both worlds.


It's me
by Leslee K. Green

It's me with Bobbie pins and corn rolls.
It's me with homemade jams and the Bible
on the table.
Music playing, my grandmother singing
the blues. My grandfather cutting potatoes, chewing
snuff.

It's me walking to the corner store to get
gryos and a peach Fago. It's me at the recreation center
swimming. It's me on St. Clair Ave with White Castle's up
the street.

It's me with my Aunt Easter (shut that noise up, girl).
It's me with Uncle U. B. and the barbeque in the back.
It's me combing Imogene's hair, Leroy out fishing.
It's me with my my mom Ernestine (you smelling yourself, girl).

It's me falling asleep on the davenport.
It's me (how ya'll doin?).
It's me in church singing Amazing Grace.

It's me with fried chicken, okra, and homemade
corn bread. It's me and grandmother cleaning chitterlings
(dang those stink).
It's me with ham hocks and black-eyed peas
and hot-dogs and baked beans.

It's me hiding under the porch.
It's me hiding in the truck.
It's me playing tag with my cousins, catching
lightning bugs.


I am From
by Kim Tenney

I am from hills and hollers,
and homes made of cornbread and brown beans.
From the creeks and the outhouses
and the flashlight to guide you at night.
I am from coal miners and homemakers,
Black lung and afghans.

I am from the race car driver,
a woman unafraid.
From the 15 year old steelworker,
determined to make his own way.
I am from beautiful stories and long lasting love.
From 18th birthday weddings
and 47 anniversaries.

I am from four children
raised by teams of two.
From my knight in shining armor
who carried me safely on his shoulders.
I am from just outside the Barbie Doll kingdom,
exiled by Goddess Zemadora.
From Lucy's psychiatry table,
where Baby Strong thought she could solve all your problems.

I am from scrapes and cuts, bleeding and bruising,
baseball bats and broken noses.
From a hundred hospital admissions
and countless surgical procedures.
I am from a bathroom in Tennessee,
long car trips and midnight adventures.

All of this and so much more.


I am from the scrap dough
by Deb

I am from the scrap dough,
cinnamon-speckled strips
baking in the oven with the broken door
held shut by her walking stick.

I am from the blood-red blooms on bleached cotton pillowcases,
delicate French knots
stitched by her gnarled hands.

I am from the thick brown beads she kissed
in the pews of St. Joe's,
head bowed.
Holy Mary, Mother of God.

I am from the chicken eggs cradled in her apron,
warm from the backyard coop.
From the dirt under her fingernails,
the dishrag on the oilcloth table,
the cash ledger in the back room.

I am from the grudge she held against
her sister

and then released
like a kite in the wind.

I am from the secret door that led to the room
she slept in alone

even though grandpa
was still alive.

A battle I choose not to fight

This is what Kate picked out to wear to daycare today: pink and gray camouflage pants with a black and blue striped shirt. Believe me, it looked much crazier in person.

I consider it an improvement over last winter, when she sported a Care Bear night gown over jeans for...oh...several weeks.

Beginning-o-the-quarter Reflections: Part One

Our quarter started January 2, so we've been in class exactly two weeks. Some reflections:

1. I'm teaching a 5-day-a-week class for the first time ever. Two sections of a 5-day-a-week class, in fact. I'm second-to-the-lowest in seniority on the full-time totem pole in my department, so my teaching schedule is never ideal. My colleagues have been making sad little clucking noises when I tell them my schedule this quarter.

But so far (and of course it's very, very early), the everyday gig ain't so bad. Most of the students said they chose this schedule because they felt 50-minute classes would work better for their attention spans. And they thought daily homework would help them stay on track more effectively. So their motivation is good. Plus, we've definitely bonded already: every morning when I walk in, they're jab-jab-jabbering away.

I love that.

2. The 5-day-a-week class is also new for me because it's the first real developmental course I've ever taught. I'm using a custom-published textbook that my colleagues initially put together four years ago (before my time here). Some of the material they wrote themselves. And I'm really liking the book: it's got challenging readings that promote discussion about race, class, gender, etc.; an engaging voice; references to our community and our specific students. I feel like I'm learning a lot about developmental comp pedagogy from my colleagues.

I like that.

(The only thing I'd add for the next edition, if I'm asked: much, much more about technology and writing.)

3. Those developmental comp students are incredibly interesting and smart. I did the "I am From" poem thing with them, and some of their poems were just fabulous. I'm collecting them all into a "book" for the students, and I hope to share a couple of them here soon.

4. For the first time in seven or eight years, I'm NOT teaching my writing courses in computer-equipped classrooms. This is not my choice (it's another effect of being the low person on the totem pole for scheduling purposes).

I'm at the point where technology is pretty much essential to my conception of teaching and learning. Not central, perhaps, but still important, necessary. Emailing, discussion-boarding, accessing course materials on Blackboard, connecting to library databases, word-processing, looking up a cultural reference on google, examining (and, more recently, creating) blogs: I have a hard time imagining being in a writing class and not being able to do those things.

Until now, I'd been able to get computer sections of writing courses. No such luck this quarter. But it doesn't suck quite as much as I thought it would. It helps that I've got the developmental comp class--a completely new prep for me anyway. And I'm still putting materials on Blackboard and reserving spaces in our big computer commons area for some class periods. So I guess I'm making it work. Still, I can't help feeling hampered in some way--like I don't have all the tools I need to do my job.

I have more reflections on these opening weeks, but I have to get to another class. So Part Two to come later!

Baking night

Tonight, Anna and I made 42 brownies and one yellow cake with chocolate icing and sprinkles.

Her seventh birthday's tomorrow.

Anna has 32 kids in her class (I know, I know...atrocious class size), so she wanted one brownie for each kid plus 10 to distribute to various teachers and secretaries. The cake's for the four of us tomorrow night.

Birthday party photos to come!

Still catching up

I stayed up until 2:30 last night catching up on blogs. It was a pleasure. I'm caught up on all my regulars except for:

Bright Star
Luckybuzz
Russian Violets
and Jo(e).

Can't wait to to get to theirs.

(I know what you're thinking: "You still have Bright Star on the list? The most prolific blogger EVER? You won't be done until...February, at least. " That's okay. I'll get there.)

In other news: We're leaving this evening for a trip home to Kentucky to celebrate Anna's and my nephew Joey's seventh birthdays. Only problem: my mom just called to say that six of the grandkids are throwing up...and pretty, um, violently. We decided to go ahead with the party tomorrow anyway, but those six cousins will be sorely missed by Anna and Kate.

Oh, and one more thing: I'm supposed to make homemade macaroni and cheese for tomorrow's party, and I've never made it before. I should probably just call my Grandma Rose and ask for her recipe, but I know she'll end up insisting on making it herself...and I don't want her to do that. So I've been searching allrecipes and Taste of Home this morning, and I'm amazed at all the variations out there. Anybody have a tried-and-true recipe to share? Cate?

Poke me in the eye

I just read a funny, witty post by Joanna about contact lenses and the problems she has wearing them.

For weeks, I've been wishing I could wear my own contacts. (I'm one of those people whose eyes actually feel better with contacts in than out; in fact, I adore my Focus Night and Day contacts because I get to wear them for 30 days AND nights before removing them. That's right--I can actually sleep in them! For a month! And my eye doctor doesn't yell at me for it!) But I haven't been able to wear them since the day after Christmas.

That day, I somehow developed pink eye. Hadn't even been around anyone who had it, as far as I knew. Since I was out of town, I paged my eye doctor, and she called in an antibiotic eyedrop prescription. A few hours after the first dose, my eyes were worse. Way worse. Oozing and itching. I thought: duh! Twice before, I'd had allergic reactions to eye medicines. And I'd forgotten to remind my doctor this time, and since she was off for the holiday, she didn't have access to my chart...

So she switched me to another antibiotic. Same problem. Only by now, I wanted to scratch my eyes out of my head. Finally, a third antibiotic and a steroid prescription cleared it up.

But I wasn't supposed to wear my contacts for two weeks.

I *hate* wearing glasses. It's not about how I look in them. It's about how my eyes feel when I wear them: like every little dust particle is directly assaulting them. And it's about how impaired my vision seems when I wear glasses: like I have no peripheral vision at all.

So yesterday was the day I could finally wear my beloved contacts again. Hooray!

But.

Last night, I rubbed my right eye. Suddenly, my vision was blurred. Dammit. I'd pushed my lens out of place, and it'd gotten lodged way up under my eyelid. I tried for like 20 minutes to get it out. Tried everything, even putting my finger against my bare eyeball (which totally doesn't bother me, by the way) and pulling the top lid over the bottom lid to force my eyes to water. No luck.

So I went to bed. The eye didn't hurt, really. Just felt irritated.

I put the glasses back on this morning, called the doctor's office, and made a 1:30 appointment. I went to work, and I mentioned to my second class that I had a contact lens stuck up under my eyelid. Some of my students were visibly grossed out. One guy shuddered. One woman said, "Oh my god, that happened to me once, and they had to put a huge suction cup over my eyeball, and it hurt for three days.

"You're gonna have to cancel class tomorrow."

I went to my 1:30 appointment, and my doctor said, "Hmm. I don't see anything. You sure the lens didn't come out on its own?"

I told her I was pretty sure it hadn't.

She said, "Okay, look down. I'm gonna flip your eyelid inside out."

I didn't even flinch. (What can I say? My eyes really DO feel better with foreign objects in them.)

And then the doc said: "Aha! There it is...waaay up there. Come on, come on....

"I got it!! Man, it was UP there. There's no way you could've gotten that out yourself. A fifth-grade boy who can flip his own eyelids inside out might've been able to do it...but I've never known a female who could do it."

(Huh? How odd is that? I hadn't even flinched.)

So then I told her my student's suction cup story. She laughed. And said that, yes indeed, they really do use a suction cup sometimes, but only on gas permeable lenses. And then she showed me the suction cup. It looked like a golf tee. I could take it.

The doctor didn't charge me for today's procedure. She said my eyes had endured enough over the past few weeks.

All I care about is...tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I'm back to my 30-day lenses. Ahh, they'll feel so good.

Seven times ten. Plus four.

Now that I've returned to the blogosphere, I'm tackling the feeds that I've gotten behind on.

According to my Bloglines account, here are the number of posts I need to read in order to get caught up with some of my favorite bloggers:

Kait -- 2
Collin -- 3
Heather -- 4
Marcia -- 8
Joanna -- not sure. I can never get the feed thing to work right with her blog.

Okay, that group's manageable. The next group? Not so much:

Dean Dad -- 15
Timna --17
Crazy Cat Woman -- 23
New Kid -- 23
Sheepish -- 24
Jesse -- 25
Jo(e) -- 26

The next bunch? Yikes!:

Scrivener -- 33
Cate -- 34
RV -- 35
Polly...I mean Luckybuzz -- 40

And...the most daunting of all (but I'm still looking forward to it):

You guessed it....

Bright Star -- 74.


74.

Seventy.
Four.

Seven times ten.
Plus four.

How does she do it?

All apologies

Blog friends,

A million apologies for having been absent for so long (both here and in the comments sections of your blogs). And a million thank you's to those of you who've posted comments or sent emails inquiring into my whereabouts.

Several things happened that kept me off-blog:

--Like everybody, I got incredibly busy with holiday stuff.

--In the midst of that busy-ness, my mom revealed that Anna had told her she wanted this for Christmas: "for my mommy to stop being on the stupid computer so much."

--Ouch.

--Anna's comment got me thinking about how much energy I hadn't expended lately on real-life friends and family.

--And then I just spiraled into a funk about blogging.

--And then I stopped blog reading and writing (except for drafting a post about self-representation and audience creation in blogging, which just worsened the funk!).

--And then I got so behind on Bloglines that I dreaded even checking it.

And then...

--it seemed easier to just cover my eyes and ears and shout "lalalalala" and pretend the blog world doesn't exist.

But...

--something's drawing me back in.

I've missed you guys.