Syllabus: An Art Form

In my ENC 5705 class, we are designing a syllabus for a First Year Composition Class.  It is a lot to think about.  I have to consider, how do the reading build off each other?  Do they all work to achieve the Learning Outcomes?  What major writing assignments will I have?  What supplementary sources will I require?

It is all very exciting, but it is also a lot of work.  For example, I started my syllabus without ever telling the students how to cite or how to locate an academic journal.  After realizing that most first year students would not know how to do these activities, I added time for such discussions and activities and shifted everything around.  Also, when Dr. Jones talked to us about plagiarism, I kept thinking about all the policies that appear on a syllabus.  My mind also recalls Dr. Trouard asking us how many novels we would teach, and which ones?  I think the best thing to do when I get to the point where I will design a literature syllabus, is to ask an experienced teacher for guidance.  Dr. Wardle has given us access to the Composition Training Website, which gives us a myriad of resources to pull from (as long as we cite!) for my Composition syllabus.

Probably my biggest concern with my syllabus is timing.  How many activities will a class go through in 50 minutes?  I have a feeling that this will be something I will have to learn through experience.  As I got better with timing for my leads, I will get better at timing activities for my future classroom.  I will learn to modify my plans according to experience.  I cannot wait to dive into teaching.

Reflection on my Lead for Frost's "The Silken Tent"

My lead went well today.  I was proud of the outcome.  Like last time, I felt good about the delivery, but this time I also felt great about the content of my lead.  I believe that I implemented a nice balance between discussing form and exploring meaning in the poem.  This lead was also a breakthrough for me, because I was nervous to teach poetry.  However, after teaching "The Silken Tent," I feel ready to plan more lessons on poetry!  I feel as if I have been getting better with each lead, and I hope that I nail my last lead.

Tips for Future Leads/Lesson Plans:

• Find a critic who articulates the message of the story the best; the critic can make or break the paper.
• Do not look for the most interesting/unique angle on the reading, but look for one that is most beneficial for the reader.  In other words, I should focus on the main themes in a story before comparing the story to an obscure Star Trek Episode.
• Relax and Smile.
• Anticipate Questions.

The last one is important.  As David Garvin explains, "Preparation . . . now means exploring multiple paths of inquiry, rather than mapping out a single linear flow . . . for in-class dynamics, preparation is a far more complex task than it was when content alone was king" (qtd. in Showalter 53).

Below are my Lead Notes for "The Silken Tent":

Frost’s “The Silken Tent”

Brief Contextual Information

·      “The Silken Tent” was presented to a close friend and secretary, Kay Morrison, in 1938 after Frost’s wife, Elinor, died.

·      Most likely, the poem was inspired by Elinor; Frost’s daughter claimed to have typed a version of it before her mother’s death (Fagan 306-307).

·      Its original title was “In Praise of Your Poise.”

·      Frost often depicts women as powerful.  Literary critic Katherine Kearns explains,

“ . . . Frost’s world is controlled by a powerful femininity.  As brides or as keepers, women dominate households” (191).  For instance, in “A Servant to Servants,” both men and women have the power to make the other mad, but the men are locked away.

Metaphor

·      According to literary scholar Mordecai Marcus, Frost’s metaphors vary in structure.  He explains:

Usually a scene achieves coherence through its realistic descriptions, and thus a structure of scene and activity suggests a structure of experience, but sometimes one thing is systematically compared to another so that the scene dissolves into a metaphorical base.  This happens in “The Silken Tent,” which describes not a tent but a woman, who is systematically analogized to a tent swaying in the breeze. (17)

·      Questions:

1.    Is the woman portrayed positively or negatively?  Why?  Find specific words to support your answer. 

Possible Answer: In many aspects, she is portrayed positively, as her soul is sure and pointed heavenward (lines 6-7) and she feels free for the most part, as she “gently sways at ease” in line 4.  On the other hand, she is reminded of her bondage at the end (line 14).

2.    How does the language “toughen” or become more constrictive in the sestet?  Point out at least 4 words that suggest constriction.

Possible Answers: “bound” in line 9, “ties” in line 10, “taut” in line 12, and “bondage” in line 14.

3.    What do the modifiers of these words suggest (SLIGHTLY bound, SILKEN ties, SLIGHTLY taut, SLIGHTEST bondage)?

Possible Answer:  They tell the reader that the woman does not notice (or at least does not harp on) the extent of her bondage.  In fact, until the air tightens the rope, she seems unaware of any constraint.  She is enjoying an illusion of freedom and handling the tension well.

·      Marcus suggests that tautening represents tensions in relationships and adds that “the slightness of the bondage shows that the woman’s tender dutifulness responds not to compulsion but to loving necessity” (167).

·      While some critics read the poem as sexual in nature, such as H. A. Maxson (who suggests that “slightly taut” suggests a sexual naïveté [104]), I would probably mention this reading as a possibility but focus on Fagan’s assertion that the “ties grow taut when strained, but these are the only times the woman is even ‘of the slightest bondage made aware of her responsibilities’ and that the poem praises the woman who is “gentle while strong, stable while flexible, and at all times has a ‘sureness of soul’ that points heavenward” (307). [1]

Form and Structure

·      The poem is a sonnet, with elements of both a Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet.

·      Frost often let form imitate statement, such as in “Silken Tent” and “The Vantage Point” (Maxson 68).

·      Questions:

4.    In what ways does the form of his poem imitate his statement?

Possible Answer: the poem is written in one long sentence, giving it a flowing rhythm uninterrupted by full stops.   This corresponds to the freedom and sway of the woman/tent.  We simultaneously reach the period at the end of the poem as the woman becomes (slightly) aware of her bondage.  Furthermore, the woman and the poem are both “loosely bound” (the poem is loosely bound by the conventions of a Shakespearean sonnet).

5.    What characteristics does the poem share with Shakespearean and/or Petrarchan sonnets?

Possible Answer:

Petrarchan Sonnet	BOTH	Shakespearean Sonnet
Epiphany or “turn” occurs in line 9, where Petrarchan sonnets turn.	14 lines	Rhyme scheme is Shakespearean (ABABCDCDEFEFGG)
	Contains the theme of “praising woman’s loveliness” (Fagan 306)	Written in iambic pentameter like a Shakespearean Sonnet

Assignment:  Compose a sonnet that utilizes an extended metaphor.  Like Frost’s “Silken Tent” you may use any combination of characteristics from Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets (but make sure that you provide a “turn” or “epiphany” in either the 9^th or 12^th line).  Bonus points will be given to those who successfully implement iambic pentameter.  Also, follow your poem with a 350-word (minimum) explanation about how your poem shares or diverges from the characteristics common in Frost’s poems.

Works Cited

Fagan, Deidre.  Critical Companion to Robert Frost: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 2007. Print.

Kearns, Katherine.  “‘The Place is the Asylum’: Women and Nature in Robert Frost’s Poetry.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 59.2 (1987): 190-210. Web. 20 March 2011.

Marcus, Mordecai. The Poems of Robert Frost: An Explication. Berkeley: Apocryphile, 1991.  Print.

Maxon, H. A.  On the Sonnets of Robert Frost: A Critical Examination of the 37 Poems. Jefferson: McFarland, 1997.  Print.

Smith, Evans Lansing.  “Frost’s ‘On a Bird Singing in its Sleep,’ ‘Never Again Would Birds’ Song be the Same,’ and ‘The Silken Tent.’”  Explicator 50.1 (1991): 35-37.  Web. 19 March 2011.

My Teaching Lead on Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber."

Image taken from: http://mistero.tripod.com/essays/macomberlion.html

First of all, I would definitely include this story if teaching a unit on Hemingway.  As Showalter asserts, "It is the responsibility of the teacher to try to engage all of the students, even if that is an impossible goal" (50).  "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" not only has an engaging plot line, interesting characters and unique shifts in perspective, but this story can be utilized to discuss themes prevalent in other Hemingway stories.  For example, TSHLFM lends itself to discussion on Hemingway's unique shift in point of view (especially if coupled with Nina Baym's article called "Actually, I Felt Sorry for the Lion"), the role women play in his novels, his portrayal of masculinity, and symbolism.

Overall, I was pleased with my lead this time.  I met the time requirement and I thought that my focus on power shifting would generate discussion and student engagement in the novel.  In my experience as both an undergraduate and graduate student, in addition to teaching high school students, I have noticed that students are interested in power struggles (whether it be between men and women, different social classes, or parents and children).  After receiving feedback on my lead, this inkling was confirmed; my fellow students complimented my topic of examining power shifting (and using the car as a symbol to drive the analysis).  Furthermore, the power struggle between men and women and the image that a man "should uphold" in society are themes found in other short stories by Hemingway and are therefore worth looking into.  As Showalter suggests, I want students to be excited about what they read, but I want them to read something worthwhile and enlightening.  This story has much potential to shed light on Hemingway's craft as an author, especially if I point out to the students the themes that transcend this individual story and how different elements make the story "Hemingwayean."

My goal for my future leads is to slow down.  Worried that I would exceed the time requirement, I spoke a bit too fast, but I am determined to pay more attention to my speed next time.  Appropriate speed of speech is a technique I mastered when performing in plays and musicals in high school as well as in teaching high school, and it is an aspect of teaching that I can control when I am careful.  Also, after writing and delivering my Hemingway lead and listening to everyone else's leads in the class, I am very excited to teach Hemingway in the future.

Below are the notes from my lead:

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”:

A Battle for Control

Objective of Discussion: 

Students will explore the short story and—through the analysis of symbolism, point of view, and plot development—they will be able to build a clearer picture of Hemingway’s characterization and which character(s) hold power.

Background

·       Several articles explain that TSHLFMc is part of a literary battle between Hemingway and Fitzgerald.  Friends at one point, by 1935 they had a falling out.  Many believe that Francis represents Fitzgerald and Margot represents Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda (O’Meara).

·       Common approaches to TSHLFMc include feminist readings, Freudian analyses (in which the gun is a phallic symbol), and numerous analyses of the ambiguous ending.

Power

Assignment: Students should send “idea notes” to me via e-mail about who they feel gains the most power during the story by midnight the night before class, and I will begin class by calling on students to share their ideas and noting particularly good ones in the beginning of class. This activity will demonstrate that various interpretations are possible in this story.

·       Various responses may include, but are not limited to:

o   Margot:

§  She ends up killing Francis in the end (Hemingway 28), probably inheriting his money and freeing herself up to possibly find someone she loves. 

§  She also knows that Wilson illegally uses cars during his hunting practices (Macomber tells Wilson, “Now she has something on you” (24).

o   Wilson:

§  He witnesses Margot killing Francis (28) and thus has the upper hand. 

§  He has the power to argue that it was intentional murder (whether or not it was), thus preventing Margot from blackmailing him with her knowledge of his illegal hunting practices

o   Francis:

§  After killing the lion, he gains a sense of manhood.

§  “You know I don’t think I’d ever be afraid of anything again, . . . You know something did happen to me . . . I feel absolutely different” (25).

§  He dies a changed man.

o   Buffalo:

§  The buffalo essentially changes everyone’s lives and identity:  Margot becomes a murderer, Francis dies, and Wilson gains control over Margot.

The Car as a Symbol of Control

A few critics have turned to the car as a symbol of who has control over the situation during various points of the story.  In his article, J. F. Peirce quotes the words of Carlos Baker:

 . . . During the next day’s shooting, we watch the Macombers in their contest for possession of a soul.  Hemingway silently points up this contest by the varying positions of the trio . . . in their boxlike open car.  On the way . . . Macomber sits in front, with Margot and Wilson in the back.  After the day’s debacle, Macomber slumps in the back beside his frozen wife, Wilson staring straight ahead in front.  When Macomber has proved himself with the . . . buffalo, it is Margot who retreats to the far corner of the back seat, while the two men happily converse vis-à-vis before her.  And finally, as Macomber kneels [It is Wilson, not Macomber who kneels] in the path of the buffalo, it is his wife from her commanding position in the back seat of the car who closes the contest. (qtd. in Peirce 230)

Analysis of Car as a Demonstration of Hierarchy

After Francis panics and runs away from the lion, the men return to the car:

Macomber’s wife had not looked at him nor he at her and he had sat by her in the back seat with Wilson sitting in the front seat.  Once he had reached over and taken his wife’s hand without looking at her and she had removed her hand from his.  Looking across the stream to where the gun-bearers where skinning out the lion he could see that she had been able to see the whole thing.  While they sat there his wife reached forward and put her hand on Wilson’s shoulder.  He turned and she had leaned forward over the low seat and kissed him on the mouth. (Hemingway 17)

1.    Think of Margot’s physical movement in this passage.  How does this spatial movement represent her power at this point in the story?  (possible answer: as she leans from the back seat to the front seat, part of her body is physically joining Wilson in the driver’s seat area, which represents control.)

2.    What message does her kiss send to the reader about power? (possible answer: her kiss with Wilson demeans her husband and reminds the reader of his lack of manhood and power.)

Later, after Francis shot the buffalo, the men again return to the car.  “His wife said nothing and eyed him strangely.  She was sitting far back in the seat and Macomber was sitting forward talking to Wilson who turned sideways talking over the back of the front seat” (25).

3.    During this car scene, how do their body positions change, and how do these changes reflect changes in power?  (possible answers:  Margot, instead of leaning forward and kissing Wilson, is slumped in the back, as far away from the driver’s seat as possible.  Macomber is now sitting forward, towards Wilson and thus towards the driver’s seat.  Wilson still remains in the driver’s seat, but Wilson is turned sideways and thus demonstrates a responsiveness and camaraderie with Francis).

a.     If students do not respond or do not highlight these main points, I will give students each a person to focus on.  For instance, 1/3 of the room will go back through the text and pay close attention to how Margot’s movements, position, and actions have changed from the previous car ride, 1/3 observe Macomber, and 1/3 observe Wilson.  Then they will report back to the class to keep discussion rolling.

Peirce adds another role for the car in the story:

To Margot, the car is a place of segregation as well as an opera box. Each time the men hunt, she is left in its safety—not the safety of the womb, but woman's place by the fire. It is, also, a place where she dominates Macomber and is dominated by Wilson. And it is a weapon to be used for her own purposes after the men chase the wounded buffalo in it. (232)

4.    From this perspective, how does the car’s role shift purpose for Margot? (Possible answer:  it was a device which secluded her from the men, eventually secluding her further in the sense that it signifies Macomber’s rise in power over her, but then it turns into a catalyst in the murder of her husband, where she gains the upper hand in the end).

Assignment

·       Divide the class in half. 

o   Group A:  Defend Margot.  Go back through the story and find at least 3 quotes that indicate that Margot did not intend to kill Francis.  Write a paragraph per quote, explaining why each quote suggests that she accidentally shot him.

o   Group B:  Prove that Margot is guilty of intentionally murdering her husband.  Go back through through the story and find at least 3 quotes that indicate that Margot purposely shot Francis.  Write a paragraph per quote, explaining why each quote suggests that she deliberately shot him.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Sept. Issue of Cosmopolitan (1936).  Rpt. in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Finca Vigia ed. New York: Scribner, 1987. Print.

O’Meara, Lauraleigh. “Shooting Cowards, Critics, and Failed Writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s Francis Macomber.” Hemingway Review 16.2 (1997): 27-34. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.

Peirce, J. F. “The Car as a Symbol in Hemingway’s ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” The South Central Bulletin 32.4 (1972): 230-32. JSTOR. Web. 13 Feb. 2011.

Hemingway's "Indian Camp" Lead: Othering Native Americans and Women

As far as delivery goes, this was my best lead yet.  I felt comfortable, I looked up from my paper often, and I relaxed.  Furthermore I got the best reviews from my class so far.  Most of them wrote that they enjoyed the feminist reading of "Indian Camp."  In order to have another smooth delivery for my next lead, I want to note aspects that went well:

Strengths:

• I looked up and made more eye contact instead of using my paper as a crutch.
• I relaxed and consciously spoke more slowly
• I smiled

Aspects to Work on:

• Dr. Trouard often reminds us to cover the best possible reading/interpretation during our lead; while the class enjoyed it, could there have been a reading of the story that could have tied the story into the rest of Hemingway's works better?
• I believe I said "um" a few times.  This should be avoided next time.

If I teach this in the future, I think that I will pair "Indian Camp" with Interchapter I, since they seem to complement each other in terms of childbirth and downplayed violence.  Furthermore, I have come to realize that planning and executing lessons takes more work than it looks from the student perspective.  I am sure I will get the "hang of it" when I actually teach on a regular basis, just as I developed the necessary skills to teach a ninth grade classroom in the past.  I look forward to the experience of teaching college students (and I very much hope to receive a GTA position next year teaching either literature or composition to undergraduate students).

On a different note, I have begun to include some background information about the author that relates to the story.  I think that this is very effective, because the information about Fitzgerald--his home life growing up in addition to his careful word choices--made me love The Great Gatsby even more.  Little facts, like the fact that Hemingway witnessed a birth under primitive conditions before, really captivate me, and I hope they captivate other students as well.

Below are the notes from my lead on "Indian Camp":

 Hemingway’s “Indian Camp”:  Othering Native Americans and Women

Objective of Discussion: 

Students will explore the short story and—through the analysis of symbolism, character’s actions, and scrutiny of word choice—they will be able to build a clearer picture of Hemingway’s characterization and which character(s) hold power. [feminist and cultural approaches]

Background

·       While Hemingway has witnessed a birth (not a cesarean section) under “primitive conditions” before, he did not try to help the woman.  Adair suggests that the story was actually loosely based on Hemingway’s post-injury experience in WWI in which he heard many wounded people screaming and saw so much suffering that it “caused him to think of suicide” (94).

·       Hemingway deleted the beginning of his original story, decreasing its length by a third.  It was later published under the title “Three Shots” (Johnson 101).

·       Common approaches to “Indian Camp” include feminist readings, cultural readings (focused on the inequality between the white men and the Native Americans), Freudian analyses (in which the leg injury and throat cutting are related to castration), and numerous analyses of the Native American father’s suicide.

In-Class Assignment about “Othering”

Free-write for 5 minutes.  Choose one of the quotes on the board and explain how it applies to “Indian Camp.”  Support your response with at least 2 quotes from the story supplemented by page numbers.

The board will display the following two quotes from Simone de Beauvior:

·       “ . . . through her passivity [a woman] bestows peace and harmony—but if she declines this role, she is seen forthwith as a praying mantis, an ogress.  In any case she appears as the privileged Other, through whom the subject fulfills himself: one of the measures of man, his counterbalance, his salvation, his adventure, his happiness” (de Beauvior 676).

·       “The Other is particularly defined according to the particular manner in which the One chooses to set himself up” (676).

POSSIBLE RESPONSES MAY CONSIDER GENDER OR RACE:

I may let a few students share, but the point of the exercise was mainly to get the students thinking about the idea of “Othering” and power relations, so we will not spend more than a few minutes reporting ideas from this exercise.

·       Gender:  such as the woman being held down during childbirth by men (her comfort is not of their concern), the men laughing at her pain when she bites Uncle George, Nick’s father claiming that women’s screams do not matter, Nick’s father treating it like a football game (seeing her painful childbirth as a benefit to him), most men tried to get away from her screams (as if she were an ogress for reacting to pain), husband’s literal position above his wife, perhaps the husband’s suicide indicates that his wife is unable to fulfill him, etc.

·       Race: such as the act of crossing the misty river indicates an entrance into a whole new world (comparable to the underworld), the Native American territory is depicted as dark, but when Nick and his father leave, they walk towards the light.

Discussion: Woman as Other

Linda Helstern asserts, “The bite may be interpreted as the agonized, hysterical response of a wounded animal, totally instinctive, but it can also be viewed as active self-defense, showing the Indian woman to be of the braver, rather than the weaker, sex” (66).

1.    If the bite represents an act of rebellion or an exercise of female agency, then what do Uncle George’s and the young Indian’s reaction indicate about how men view women in the story?

(Possible Answers:  The laughter indicates that the young Indian does not take her seriously; Uncle George calls her a “Damn squaw bitch,” demeaning both her race and her gender.)

2.    The female process of childbirth is sometimes described by society as natural, painful, or even beautiful.  How does the father view childbirth?  (Consider the following passage):

He was feeling exalted and talkative as football players are in the dressing room after the game.

“That’s one for the medical journal, George,” he said.  “Doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders.”

Uncle George was standing against the wall, looking at his arm.

“Oh, you’re a great man, all right,” he said.  (Hemingway 69)

(Possible Answers:  The father views childbirth as a sport in which he is active, almost as if the woman were the football; he views this delivery in particular in terms of himself—fame via publication in a medical journal; at one point he also mentions that her screams are not important, disregarding her feelings of pain as if she were an object.)

OTHER POINTS TO BRING UP:

·       The fact that a so-called natural process could supposedly not be handled by the Native American women suggests that a man is needed to do a job typically associated with females in their culture (mid-wives).

·       The roles played by women are all passive (they retrieve tools and watch; even the woman giving birth is unable to accomplish the task without help from the doctor, thus giving the doctor control over a female process), while the male roles are generally active (men hold the woman down; the doctor delivers the baby; even the husband cuts his own throat, almost as if mirroring the act of “C-section” on his throat).

·       Even the word “Caesarian” connotes power and control due to its root “Caesar.”

Discussion: Native American as Other

Helstern suggests that “the need to summon the white medicine man in the most obvious sign of the decay of traditional Indian culture.  Each act performed by an Indian in this story is inept or incompetent, beginning with the Indian oarsmen who row back across the lake ‘with quick choppy strokes’” (65).

Consider the following passage:

The two boats started off in the dark.  Nick heard the oarlocks of the other boat quite a way ahead of them in the midst.  The Indians rowed with quick choppy strokes.  Nick lay back with his father’s arm around him.  It was cold on the water.  The Indian who was rowing them was working very hard, but the other boat moved further ahead in the midst all the time.

“Where are we going, Dad?” Nick asked.

“Over to the Indian camp.  There is an Indian lady very sick.”

“Oh,” said Nick.

Across the bay they found the other boat beached.  Uncle George was smoking a cigar in the dark.  The young Indian pulled the boat way up on the beach.  Uncle George gave both the Indians cigars. (Hemingway 67)

3.    Helstern suggests that the Native Americans are portrayed as incompetent, beginning with their “quick choppy strokes.”  Looking at the rest of the story, where else are they portrayed as inept?

(Possible Answers: they couldn’t deliver the baby without bringing in outside help; the husband feels so helpless that it may have led to his suicide; he brought his own soap and tools from the outside.)

4.     What significance does the gift of cigars hold?

(Possible Answers: the cigars are from outside culture and could be seen as the white men imposing their culture onto the Native Americans; it could be a sign of rivalry.*)

OTHER POINTS TO BRING UP:

·       The trip across the lake can be compared to a trip across the River Styx to the underworld (mist, dogs greeting them on the other side—comparable to Cerberus, the Native Americans row them across the lake, taking on the role of Charon, they experience a death once over to the other side).   Joseph DeFalco points out this connection when he says, “the classical parallel is too obvious to overlook, for the two Indians function in a Charon-like fashion in transporting Nick, his father, and his uncle  from their own sophisticated and civilized world of the white man into the dark and primitive world of the camp” (qtd. in Strong 19)

·       The gift of the cigars was not an exchange but a gift.  *According to Gayle Rubin, gift exchange can be a sign of rivalry where each side gave until the other side could not reciprocate (21).

Assignment

The father’s suicide has been a long-standing debate among scholars.  Depending on how you interpret various events in the story, the characters’ actions, and the lens through which you view the story (feminist, cultural, Freudian).  Read Jeffrey Meyer’s “Hemingway’s Primitivism and ‘Indian Camp’” in which he describes various interpretations of the suicide before offering his own view.  Then answer the following question on the Blackboard Discussion Board (400-600 words):

Which interpretation of the father’s death do you agree with?  Explain why you interpret it this way.  If you disagree with all of the interpretations, you may offer your own.

Works Cited

Adair, William. “A Source for Hemingway’s ‘Indian Camp.’” Studies in Short Fiction 28.1 (1991): 93-95. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 19 Feb. 2011.

De Beauvoir, Simone. “Myths: Of Women in Five Authors.” Trans. H. M. Parshley. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3^rd ed. Ed. David Richter. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2007. 676-678.  Print.

Helstern, Linda. “Indians, Woodcraft, and the Construction of White Masculinity: The Boyhood of Nick Adams.”  The Hemingway Review 20.1 (2000): 61-78. MLA International Bibliography. Web.  20 Feb. 2011.

Hemingway, Ernest. “Indian Camp.” Transatlantic Review (1924).  Rpt. in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Finca Vigia ed. New York: Scribner, 1987. 67-70. Print.

Johnston, Kenneth. “In the Beginning: Hemingway’s ‘Indian Camp.’” Studies in Short Fiction 15.1 (1978): 102-04. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 19 Feb. 2011.

Meyers, Jeffrey. “Hemingway’s Primitivism and ‘Indian Camp.’” Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 34.2 (1988): 211-22. MLA International Bibliography.  Web. 21 Feb. 2011.

Strong, Amy. “Screaming Through Silence: The Violence of Race in ‘Indian Camp’ and ‘The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife.’” The Hemingway Review 16.1 (1996): 18-32. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 20 Feb. 2011.

*Note:  If I were teaching this in conjunction with the other Nick Adams stories, I would focus on Nick’s role in the scene as well as his view of death in this story as compared with future Nick stories.

Itching to Teach

Today I missed being a teacher.  I think I am missing my students because a couple of them e-mailed me to tell me that they are having a winning season in soccer (which I used to coach).  This is a good sign, because sometimes I get so bogged down with work and trying to make the grades in grad school that I forget the end product. I am going to be a teacher again someday (hopefully soon).  While I do not know what age group I will be teaching in the future (although I do know that it will be somewhere from 7th grade up through college age), I just cannot wait to have a classroom again.  I love getting students excited about the topic of the day and I enjoy talking about writing, research, and reading.

You may be wondering, "Why are you spewing all of this excitement into your metajournal?"  Well, I think this could be a good post to look back on when I get frustrated--to remind me of why I am working to pay for classes, writing so many papers, and staying up late revising my work.  Also, when I go back to teaching, it can be easy to get caught up in "What assessment works best?" and "What type of rubric should I use?" but I have learned from my Issues in Education Research that staying informed on such topics is important, but no one will never agree on one answer.  I trust that through experience, I will find what teaching and assessment styles work for me.

Something that I have been also thinking a lot about this week is how I want to teach Hemingway to my future students.  I never appreciated his work before (and perhaps that is because I had never read any of his short stories), but after reading his short stories and seeing how they fit together, I would have the students read "Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber" and discuss perspective and power struggles.  I would possibly also assign Baym's "Actually I Felt Sorry for the Lion" as it highlights Hemingway's unique manner of dealing with perspective in a meaningful way.

Rubrics, Rubrics, Rubrics!

For my ENC 5705 class, I decided to do my annotated bibliography on rubrics (as I was inspired in this class to do further research on them) and thus I have shifted my articles for this class away from rubrics for awhile (I have included a few articles on rubrics in my Issues On Education Journal, but I have started to look at other assessment trends in education).  During my research on rubrics, I have come to the realization that rubrics are not the full-proof assessment tools that I once thought they were.  Yes, they can be utilized in a positive manner, but it takes a lot of work.  Some assignments would benefit from a rubric while rubrics would be unnecessary in other situations (you are probably wondering, what situations, Lindsay?).  I will start thinking about such situations here.

Rubrics can be beneficial if:

• They are discussed beforehand and used on a project where specific criteria must be met.
• Their use is modeled in the classroom before students try using them on their own.
• They are flexible enough to allow for creativity.

Rubrics can stifle if:

• Students do not know how to use them (they will become intimidated by them).
• They do not allow for any deviation and thus provide no room for creativity or higher level thinking.

Below is my annotated bibliography on rubrics for ENC 5705:

RUBRICS:  STIFLING OR HELPFUL?

Many educators have debated the idea of utilizing rubrics as learning and assessment tools for teaching writing.  While some scholars argue that they constrict student writing, many assert that rubrics are helpful if constructed and used properly.  This bibliography focuses on both the disadvantages and benefits of rubrics.

Furthermore, the discourse on rubrics is wide-ranging.  Some scholars give advice on how to make rubrics more useful in the classroom and how to construct rubrics so that the expectations are clear and align with the instructor’s pedagogy.  Others suggest that students should be afforded the opportunity to collaborate and create the rubric, while others see more benefit in the teachers creating it themselves.  Some argue that rubrics constrict creativity, while others assert that rubrics help students engage in metacognitive reflection on their writing.  Most critics of the rubric would agree that a rubric is a tool that, if used, must be utilized with thought and caution in the classroom.

Andrade, Heidi Goodrich.  “Teaching With Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”  College Teaching 53.1 (2005): 27-30.  ERIC. Web. 18 Mar. 2011.   Published in a peer-reviewed journal, Andrade’s article draws from research and her recent experiences as an assistant professor to review the benefits of using rubrics as teaching and grading tools, and she cautions instructors against approaches that limit rubric effectiveness.  Rubrics can orient teachers toward their goals; they help instructors clarify learning goals, convey these goals to students, guide feedback on students’ progress toward the goals, and judge student writing in terms of the degree to which the goals were met.  On the other hand, rubrics are not self-explanatory and teachers need to spend time in class discussing the implications of the rubric (even if the students helped create it) and giving the students an opportunity to practice using the rubric before their work is assessed with it.  Furthermore, teachers must consider the quality and clarity of their rubrics.  She asserts, “Rubrics improve when we compare them to published standards, show them to another teacher, or ask a colleague to coscore some student work” (30).  Andrade sees benefit in utilizing rubrics in classrooms of any level (grade school through graduate school) if teachers create and employ them with care.

Chapman, Valerie and M. Duane Inman.  “A Conundrum: Rubrics or Creativity/ Metacognitive Development?” Educational Horizons 87.3 (2009): 198-202. Education Full Text. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.   Published in Pi Lambda Theta’s professional newsletter, Chapman and Inman’s article draws from the authors’ own observations in the classroom and research from other educators to explain why grading rubrics stifle students if not constructed with caution.  While teachers often utilize rubrics in the classroom with the intent to grade fairly, provide guidance, and simplify the grading process, students view rubrics as their way to an A.  Thus students are afraid to go beyond the expectations of the rubric for fear that they will get points off, so they rigidly follow the guidelines.  As a result of matching their work to a teacher’s template, students are not exercising important skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  For rubrics to be used as effective tools in the classroom, they must be flexible and broad (Chapman and Inman suggest adding “Creativity” as a category on the rubric).

Elbow, Peter. “Do We Need a Single Standard of Value for Institutional Assessment? An Essay Response to Asao Inoue’s ‘Community-based Assessment Pedagogy.” Assessing Writing 11.2 (2006): 81-99. ERIC. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.   In this peer-reviewed journal article, Elbow responds to Inoue’s “Community-based Assessment Pedagogy” to question the practice of students assessing each other’s writing.  Elbow points out that a rubric, which serves as a single model of good writing, misrepresents the manner in which the value of good writing is socially constructed.  He asserts that “if we want to help students learn to read and write better, we need to help them see competing standards as a positive resource for understanding quality—and a testimony to the complexity and diversity both in pieces of writing and in pieces of humanity” (91).  Elbow discusses his use of contract grading in which he assesses grades up to a B based on activities (or requirements met), taking into consideration his personal judgments of quality only when assigning A’s.

Inoue, Asao B. “Community-based Assessment Pedagogy.” Assessing Writing 9.3 (2005): 208-38. ERIC. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.  In this peer-reviewed journal article, Inoue reveals the results of moving away from teacher-centered assessment and evaluation of student writing to enable students to assess themselves.  He explores the benefits of community-based assessment, as defined by Ed White and Brian Huot: “Community-based assessment pedagogy asks students to take control of all the writing and assessment practices of the class, including . . . the creation of assessment criteria, rubrics, and writing assignments” (210).  Such benefits include students becoming more reflective, critical, and self-conscious writers.  During his three semesters of implementing community-based assessment practices, Inoue found that when students create their own rubric and grade their own writing, they were forced to reflect on their own writing, resulting in metacognitive awareness.

Mabry, Linda.  “Writing to the Rubric: Lingering Effects of Traditional Standardized Testing on Direct Writing Assessment.” The Phi Delta Kappan 80.9 (1999): 673-79. JSTOR. Web. 1 March 2011.   In her article published in Phi Delta Kappan’s professional journal on education, Mabry presents the rationale educators give for implementing standardized tests and rubrics in secondary education and refutes their reasoning, stating that while rubrics provide reliability in performance assessments, they also standardize writing and the teaching of writing.  She suggests that rubrics are “agents of standardization” that make writing assignments resemble the multiple-choice tests they were meant to improve upon  (676).  She correlates this standardization of writing to a study conducted by Firestone, Fairman, and Mayrowetz.  In their study, they evaluated performance assessments in Maine and Maryland and concluded that the states’ attempts to redesign the test and increase reliability actually constrained student options, finding their change from multiple-choice to performance testing superficial rather than conceptual.  Mabry cautions educators to stop sending the message that good writing is the sum of the criteria on the rubric.

Martins, David. “Scoring Rubrics and the Material Conditions of Our Relations With Students.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 36.2 (2008): 123-37. Print.   In his peer-reviewed journal article, Martins suggests that by viewing rubrics as technology, instructors can “develop rubrics that offer productive opportunities for enriching student-teacher relationships and improving writing instruction” (124).  Once a coordinator for Writing Across the Curriculum Program at a large university, Martins originally discouraged his colleagues from scoring guides and rubrics.  However, after considering the higher demands for teachers regarding time and class loads and reading Nancy Sommer’s ideas on responding to student writers, he revisited the role of rubrics in the classroom.  Through implementing rubrics into his college classrooms, Martins has discovered that when rubrics clearly communicate to students what the instructor expects their writing to do as well as the instructor’s criteria for evaluation, rubrics can be effective teaching and grading tools.  He also notes that instructors who implement rubrics need to go over the rubric in class to model how one should utilize the rubric properly when writing.  In addition, the teacher should give the students a chance to discuss the rubric in class to clarify for them what the teacher is looking for in the essay, but, more important, to offer students “an opportunity to explore as a class whether [the teacher’s] instruction and [student] efforts match the rubric” (131).  Any perceived discrepancy should lead to the instructor altering the rubric.  Thus, rubrics combined with planning, reflection, and listening have a chance to become one of many effective ways to engage with students on writing, not just to tell them our expectations on writing.

Reddy, Y. Malini and Heidi Andrade. “A Review of Rubric Use in Higher Education.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 35.4 (2010): 435-48. ERIC. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.   This peer-reviewed journal article reviews the research conducted on the use of rubrics at the post-secondary level.  Two studies—one conducted by Petkov and Petkova and another by Reitmeier, Svendsen, and Vrchota—suggest that rubric use correlates with improved academic performance, while a third study—by Powell—did not support this notion.  Furthermore, several studies have demonstrated that rubrics can help identify specific areas for improvement in courses and programs.  In other words, rubrics have the potential to act as “instructional illuminators” (qtd. on page 441), or provide feedback to instructors and departments on which skills students have mastered and which they have not.  Several studies have suggested that the language used in rubrics is important because it can be more accurately and consistently interpreted by instructors, students, and scorers.  Reddy and Andrade end the article by suggesting further research regarding rubrics in the areas of research methodologies, geographical focus, validity and reliability, and the promotion of learning.

Rezaei, Ali Reza and Michael Lovorn. “Reliability and Validity of Rubrics for Assessment Through Writing.” Assessing Writing 15.1 (2010): 18-39. ERIC. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.   In this peer-reviewed journal article, Rezaei and Lovorn explain their experiment which was conducted to investigate the reliability and validity of rubrics in assessing college students’ writing.  The participants were asked to grade one of the two writing samples.  Sample one used correct sentence structure, spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but it did not entirely answer the question.  On the other hand, sample two answered the question but contained multiple errors in grammar and punctuation.  For each sample, participants were asked to assess the writing samples once without a rubric and once with a rubric.  The results suggest that the participants took off points for mechanical characteristics in the writing samples whether or not they used a rubric, thus indicating that using rubrics will not necessarily improve the reliability or validity of assessment unless the graders are well trained on how to design and implement them effectively.

Saddler, Bruce and Heidi Andrade. “The Writing Rubric.” Educational Leadership 62.2 (2004): 48-52. ERIC. Web. 1 March 2011.   In their journal article, Saddler and Andrade discuss two writers, a struggling writer (Katie) and a successful writer (Maren), to conclude that clear, accessible instructional rubrics can “provide the scaffolding students need to become self-regulated writers” (49).  Unlike assessment rubrics, instructional rubrics are often created with students.  Paired with teacher-student conferences and peer assessment, rubrics can help provide useful instruction and feedback on writing in a classroom.  In this way, a rubric can help students who are struggling as well as students who are succeeding because it encourages them to navigate the writing process to become self-regulated learners.

Smith, Lois J. “Grading Written Projects: What Approaches Do Students Find Most Helpful?” Journal of Education for Business 83.6 (2008): 325-30. ERIC. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.   This article published in a peer-reviewed journal explains Smith’s study to find out what types of assessment feedback students find most helpful.  Students in college marketing classes at a public university were given a two-part survey.  In the first section, students were asked to indicate their preference among three types of grading methods (a grading matrix [rubric], a paragraph suggesting improvements, and a paragraph of strengths and weaknesses) and to write comments on why they found their preference to be the best grading method.  In the second section, students were asked to respond to 11 statements with their level of agreement (using a 5-point Likert-type scale) regarding the students’ reading of comments, statements on grading focus (grammar, spelling, and content), and statements on teachers’ summary comments at the end of papers.  Sixty percent of students preferred a grading rubric because they felt it was easier to follow and afforded fairness.  Smith concludes that in addition to appreciating a clear rubric, “students appreciate the basics of respect and fairness and attempts at balancing negative criticism with support” (330) and that instructors’ grading time and effort can foster more positive faculty-student interactions if coupled with respect and kindness.

Spence, Lucy K. “Discerning Writing Assessment: Insights into an Analytical Rubric.” Language Arts 87.5 (2010): 337-52. ERIC. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.   Spence’s case study, published in a peer-reviewed journal, examines the grading practices of a teacher on the writing of an English learner named Dulce in a grade school.  The teacher used a rubric to grade all of her students, and Spence notes that the teacher tended to privilege the rubric over important contextual information during assessment.  There were times during grading that the teacher seemed to want to assign Dulce a higher grade due to her strong content, however after quoting from the rubric, she settled on a lower grade.  Spence notes that “the rubric’s artificial separation of the traits takes the focus away from the meaning the child is communicating through personal experience brought to bear on a topic” (342).  Spence concludes that rubrics should be carefully reviewed prior to implementation to determine what it will reveal and conceal in student writing.  For instance, will the rubric allow the teacher to assess English learners in a way that helps them “grow as writers [as opposed to] hold[ing] them to an accountability standard that was designed for native speakers when they are not yet ready” (345)?