college

blogging / college / Internet / shindotv — No Comments
8
Oct 07

Vintage ShindoTV: The University Years

I thought my website on the University server was lost forever. Naturally, after I graduated, my computer computer account was deleted a year later. Not that I really cared, but some of my writing files were on that incarnation of ShindoTV, and recreating those files can be a bitch. I don’t like to type things over if I don’t have to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a secretary so I really don’t have a choice in the matter. I found all my fears and anxieties were unfounded — there’s an internet archive that keeps track of most of what’s put on the web.

Here is the archive for my website on the university server.

Here’s the mirror site on my personal computer account during the university years.

Someday, this blog will be stored in the Borgified web archive. I remember Seven of Nine saying something about when a Borg dies, they live on the collective memory, so that what I feel has happened to my dead websites.

Click on the links if you want to see the early millenium models of ShindoTV. Better yet, enter in your web addresses into the Internet Archive.

college / communication styles / English language / teaching / writing — No Comments
31
Aug 07

They Frakked Up

Last night, I learned from my Basic Composition students that the college bookstore had 5 books listed for me: two editions of College Writing Skills (one with a CD-ROM), two Keys For Writers (a grammar book which was optional, but showed up required), and Barbara Ehrenreich‘s Nickeled and Dimed. Some students, playing it safe, bought both copies of College Writing Skills and Keys for Writers. Gee, Langan and Raimes must be getting very rich from this, especially Langan as he seems to come out with new editions of College Writing Skills and English Skills every year. I cleared this up with my students that they only needed one copy of Writing Skills and a copy of Nickeled and Dimed, and that Keys for Writers was optional. I then told them they could return the redundant textbooks.

The bookstore frakked up in listing the books as five, when there were only two required and one optional. It could be worse. They could have not had the books for my course in their inventory, and that would delay lessons indefinitely. The copier would become my best friend, but that’s time best spent elsewhere.

I’ve used College Writing Skills in the past (in a previous edition), so I know more or less what I’m going to teach with that book. It has what my class needs to know for an essay (which I’ll keep revisiting until they’ll get sick of it), grammar, and some readings.

I’m looking forward to using Nickeled and Dimed. After giving my students a brief synopsis of the book, I know some of them feel they could write their own version of Ehrenreich’s accounts, more accurately for sure. I look forward to hearing their takes on it and seeing what they write in response.

college / communication styles / English language / teaching — 2 Comments
31
Aug 07

Perhaps Etiquette Should Be Taught In College

At one college where I teach, a certain professor has the knack for turning any bit of class participation, into a teaching moment. I’m not as gifted as he is, but I sometimes turn odd questions or comments into a pedagogical opportunity.

In my late afternoon class, when I was going over attitudes towards writing and what writing is, one student asked me about if they have to learn etiquette in English class. I have to admit I was thrown off by this. Would I have to walk my students a few blocks over to the University Club, show them how I eat holding a fork with my left hand and a knife with my right, and then arrange the silverware in the four o’clock position to let the waiter know I was finished? Or, should I teach them how to write Dear Sir or Dear Madame? Honestly, I was confounded, and I hate being confounded in front of a group of people.

So, within seconds (which seemed like an eternity), I responded that while etiquette is part of how we use language, we were not learning it in this course. I then shifted the subject to the issue of tone in righting. The odd question provided a nice segue for this, even though I didn’t plan to discuss it in this session. However, it was nice to see the students understood tone in writing and many of them even came up with various examples from life.

My student’s question brings up an interesting point. Perhaps etiquette should be taught in college. I’m not talking about which spoon to use (one scene in the Titanic provides that lesson in a throwaway moment), but students could use a lesson in civility. The Mindy Shatners of the world certainly could. These are the petty, spoiled, too smart for their own good brats who deserve a good kick in the pants, but my own decency prevents me from taking that action. And, of course, they’re always academic hacks and slummers.

While it may be tempting to knock some manners into Mindy’s noggin, she just has to learn not everyone is impressed with the likes of her.

If I could use an odd question from a student as a teaching moment, I can certainly transform the martini-inspiring moments of Mindy Shatner, her little sister, and her in-bred cousins.

college — 4 Comments
29
Aug 07

What Do Space Aliens Have To Do With Art History?

This one’s set in the fashion design school I went to right after graduating from high school.

Art history class was often one big slide show where the teacher managed to keep it interesting (in contrast to the color theory teacher whose droning voice often put me to sleep). She was intelligent and lively, and she highlighted what we needed to know about the artworks presented. Of course, that wasn’t enough for Frankie, a small little man. Apparently, not much was there at all, and he decided Art History was a course in the paranormal. When the teacher reviewed Stone Age, Neolithic, and Egyptian art, Frankie constantly interrupted her to ask if space aliens visited them and influenced with their works.

She, like most professional educators, displayed an incredible amount of patience.

If space aliens had anything to do with this, they most likely abducted Frankie some time ago before his admission to the school and vaporized most of his grey matter.

college — 4 Comments
28
Aug 07

There Are No Such Things As Stupid Questions…

When I took course in European history as an undergrad some years ago, there were a few strange people on the class. One thirty something man would ask extremely convoluted questions that could be written out as complex sentences that said nothing at all, which would confound the professor, a man with a Classical education. He was often patient in trying to deal with this student, though I could see that these questions got on his nerves.

One day, the discussion was on Greece and Turkey, and another student asked, “Where does the name of Turkey come from, other than ‘gobble gobbble?’”

My classmates and I were all embarrassed for him, especially since there was a young woman from Turkey in the class. She graciously explained that the name came from Turkiye, the name for the Turkish people.

It’s a moment that’s a testimony to the unsurpassed wit and intelligence of Americans to our international student guests.

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