Writing what we teach and revision

Last semester and this semester I have written along with my students. My Dad was an old naval officer (and later a minister) that always taught me that you should never ask someone to do something that you are not willing to do yourself. It wasn't bad advice. I feel that I should be writing the same assignments that my students write.

It's also interesting to note that my examples are not always the best. I use my written examples as an in-class example, but I often catch mistakes and areas that could be improved. This is not such a bad thing. It shows students that we all make mistakes and can use revision in our writing. I'm the first person to point out mistakes that I have made and, hopefully, we all learn from them.

So far this semester my students have done a much better job with their revisions. I can actually see substantive changes between their rough drafts and the revised drafts. But I empathize with my students on revision. I can't tell you how I revise. I don't know what my method is, and it may change from paper to paper. The one thing I DO know is that I never write a paper the night before it's due. I allow myself plenty of time to do the paper, and I read it and tweak it several dozen times before I would consider printing it. But like many of my students, once that paper is printed it feels like it's chiseled in stone. I have no desire to go back and rework something that has been committed to ink and I can recite in my sleep.

Time, of course, has a way of changing the way we think. When I now read papers that I had written in my freshman, sophmore, and junior years I wonder how I could have turned in such rubbish.

plagiarism revisited

I was on a Web site the other day that claimed the papers they sold "are not plagiarized because each one is created according to the needs of the client." Yeah right! Somehow this idea that I can buy a paper that is custom made does not constitute plagiarism is really disturbing. What's most disturbing is that it makes detecting plagiarism that much more difficult. Googling words and phrases from a custom designed paper do not produce any results.

I've got an individual, now, that turned in his/her Memoir assignment (the second assignment in my schedule). This person is a pretty good writer, but the Memoir seemed to be just a little too slick. The person in question is from Saint Louis, and the paper talked about the individual's stay in a rehab center for heroine addiction. Because there were some red flags about this paper, I Googled some key phrases from the paper. The only thing I found out was that this individual used a real doctor's name and an actual rehab name for the place he/she claims to have attended. The only problem is that this place is in south Florida and it's one of those rehab centers for the rich and famous. The writing in the paper made it sound like it was a local place from this individual's home. Although I don't know the personal background of this individual, I find it hard to believe that he/she could spend over a year (which he/she claims) in a rehab in south Florida that caters to rich people.

Now I'm faced with that dilemma of giving this person an A for a paper that clearly deserves it , but may be plagiarized, or confronting this person on the paper that seems to be brutally "honest" if it's true. This is not a good position for me to be in. To compound the problem, this person's other papers are well-written, not spectacular, but well-written. He/she does, however, have one of the worst attendance records in my class because he/she claims that working hours are taking a toll on attendance. My assumption is that if this individual's family had enough money to send them to a fancy rehab for a year, he/she would not need to work to go through college.

This is my first suspected case of plagiarism. Am I being paranoid? What might be done that I could handle this with sensitivity? I certainly don't want to send a signal of accusing this person of plagiarism if their paper is original and written by them.

Pigeon holes

I don't like the idea of being pigeonholed into one form of teaching or another. I associate myself more with the "expressivist" point of view than any other--and I know that's like saying I'm a communist--but I don't strictly adhere to everything that the expressivists advocate.



Why is it that we always have to label things that puts us in one camp or another? A good example of this phenomenon would be abortion. Can I be pro-abortion if it occurs in the early stages of pregnancy and be against it if it involves partial-birth abortion? It can't be done according to radicals on both sides. "Your'e either with or against us" is the motto. I have always refused to play that game.



When we teach, we do what works best for us. We can study pedagogy theories until the cows come home, but in the end it all boils down to our ability to disseminate information to the students. It doesn't rely on labels that define our teaching style. Whether it's Flowers, Bartholmae, or Elbow we would like to emulate, it still boils down to US. If someone can figure out the right and wrong ways to teach then I would quickly prescribe to that point of view, and we would all be drawing the same pictures for 603. The theorists may have good ideas, but let them come and try to teach my evening class of apathetic, sleepy students who have worked all day and could give a rat's ass about English. I wonder how successful they would be?



Does anybody know Elbow's number? I think I'll call him and see if he can give me a one on one with my class.