Teaching, Training, Telling--towards a theory of elearning Genres

Teaching vs. Telling.  The division is deep.

Context
From December to May, I was teaching an online class in early British literature that required me to devise ways for students to learn in an online-only environment--and really learn, or why were we going through the motions?  I was concerned with making students' means of acquiring information as interactive as possible, and with assigning activities that reinforce the learning while also getting them to think a bit deeper about the ideas, and make connections--all of the things a good instructor is supposed to do.

During this time, I was involved--at my 8-5 job--in ongoing revision to a training certificate program for entry-level adminstrative professional staff.  In the process, the business writing class that we teach was moved to the "II" certificate from the "I" certificate--and I took exception, because even staff who are not writing long documents spend a significant amount of time communicating by email--both internally and externally.  So I proposed something like an "Email Best Practices" class, which would either be taught in person (maybe for an hour) or could be an online course.

When our director said no to a traditional class and yes to the online training, I envisioned something that would allow the user to make choices between good and bad email practices while delivering the essential information--something really interactive that would actually teach.  I don't really think that the 6-hour, 1- or 2-day business writing class accomplishes much in the way of making the participants' writing better, but it does give them strategies for more effective communication.  With the email training, I wanted to actually curb some bad email practies.

Dilemma/Problem
Because the online class is part of a certificate program, and there are people who need to finish in the next few months, there was a bit of anxiety among participants in the program.  This led to the director of my department giving--well, more an ultimatum than a deadline.  At any rate, it has a very different feel than most of my deadlines, perhaps because of how arbitrary it is.  And it's not like it's the only thing on my plate--quite the contrary.  So speaking to my direct supervisor, who is a reasonable person, I received a recommendation (only more forceful than a recommendation, becuase it is bound to the aritrary deadline): just throw some information into PowerPoint and we will convert it to an online class from there.

Just. Throw. Information. Into. PowerPoint.  That's the elearning equivalent of an all-lecture course, and not at all what I had in mind for this course that was really supposed to teach something--to help people to communicate better via email.  I protested.  I bargained.  I philosophized.  But no.  This is the task I have been given--use PowerPoint as an information dump.  I co-presented at a conference earlier in the year about making PowerPoint more interactive.  I have been trying to use PowerPoint to develop interactive tutorials that I can post in Blackboard to give my students an interactive, self-guided lesson.  This upsets me so much.

The Crux
What I realized, speaking with my boss today, is that the contrast between what I want to do and what I have time to do taps into my conception of teaching, and my perception of myself and my role as a teacher--even in designing online materials.  I want to help people to learn.  I don't just want them to fill a checkbox.  This isn't like the type of compliance training that only requires that the information be available, and gives you a checkbox to acknowledge that it has passed in front of your eyeballs.  I wanted more from this.  So my level of satisfaction from this project has just decreased dramatically. It is no longer a teaching problem; it is an efficiency problem.

Solutions and Theorizing...
I could, of course, just create this first version and then revise it and make it as great as I want...  That option was offered, but I don't think that will happen.  I simply don't work like that.  I need purpose and momentum, and once it's up, and not really mine any more but the property of the department (all of you "#altac" people out there, take note--this is life outside of academia), I will simply feel done with it and ready to move on.

Our compromise is to call the training "Tips for," and to change what I saw as the overall purpose.  Instead of teaching, we will simply be listing best practices, more or less.  It won't stick.  It's not designed to.  So it maybe doesn't matter? *sigh*  Not ideal for my original intention.

But I was thinking... There is a place and a time for giving information, and it can be accomplished in different media differently.  As soon as I stopped thinking of it as a "course" and started thinking of it as an "FYI" (more or less), my purpose manifested itself in interesting ways.  Sitting down to introduce the slide show (which will be without sound, because who has time for that?), I immediately asked the question, "Why do we need to write better emails?"  This lead me to investigate statistics on how much we use email in a typical business day.  Email is professional communiation.  So my purpose became, "Let's make it professional communication--and here are some tips."

I can tell people things--I do it all the time.  But I do have to have a purpose in doing so, whether or not it is well-articulated.

Then, there's elearning itself.  There are the really interactive courses (some of them taking up to 30 minutes because hey--the more time you spend clicking through, the more you learn, right? or not...) and the less interactive.  There are some that simply talk to you and others that have you play games.  Some are literally just words on the screen. But each fulfills its purpose.  Some compliance training is like the screen that you sign before picking up a prescription.  Anyone know the information that they're referring to?  Anyone care much?  But someone needs that signature for their records.  Similarly, people dealing with biohazards need to have several text-heavy screens floated past them so that they can click "acknowledge."  I'm not making this up.  It's scary, and I don't believe in it, but that training is fulfilling its own legalistic purpose--which is most emphatically not to teach.

So elearning, you might say, has different genres.  And those different genres make distinct use of the capabilities of the software, some extremely minimal, others extensive.  And maybe compliance training isn't bad training, it's simply what it is--driven by its own purpose which has eveything to do with the liability of the provider and absolutely nothing to do with the increased understanding of the user.  So... genres.

It doesn't make me happy to have to shift from elearning as a teaching platform to elearning as an information dump, but at least I have a way to reconcile myself to the circumstances and something to think further about.  Genres of elearning.

Small Successes II: Success with Sonnets!

My life so far in April has been characterized by hope, uncertainty, disappointment, and hope all over again--so basically stress--the cause of which is an unexpected and un-looked-for job possibility at a school I applied to in August for a completely different position.  None of this has anything to do with my current adjunct class, which has been rolling along.  So I'd like to describe another success.

This activity was designed to give students a sense of the expressive potential of sonnets, the shifts in the poems, and different possible interpretations of individual poems.  First, I found pairs of actors' interpretations of individual sonnets.

Sonnet #	Read by
12	David Tennant
	John Gielgud
18	Tom Hiddleston
	David Tennant
	Michael York
29	Matthew Macfayden
	Patrick Stewart
73	Andrew Motion
	John Bell
116	Patrick Stewart
	Juliet Stevenson
	John Gielgud
130	Alan Rickman
	Daniel Radcliffe**
	Stephen Fry
	Tom Hiddleston
	American Sign Language Version
144	Niamh McGrady

Students were asked to follow these steps:

1. Read the sonnet. Record your reactions below—the subject(s)/topic(s) of the poem (such as the beloved and immortality, or thepower of literature/poetry), the speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the thesis/argument that the poem is making about the subject,the tone and/or mood of the poem.2. Listen/view one reading of the poem from the list. What mood does the actor portray? Does the actor’s mood change? Record wherethe actor changes the mood (line 5? Between the second and third quatrain? Etc.) Does this reading agree with your own? Does itchange your impression?3. Listen/view a second reading of the poem from the list. What mood does the actor portray? Does the actor’s mood change? Recordwhere the actor changes the mood (line 5? Between the second and third quatrain? Etc.) How does the second performance compareto the first?

I also created a worksheet with a chart to help students to be able to record these observations--because poetry analyses, in particular, need some structure!

The responses were good overall--better when the student wrote a bit more about the poem initially, when there was a significant contrast between the two versions, or when one version impacted the student's initial interpretation gained from reading the poem.  Sometimes, I suspect that the readings actualy influenced an interpretation where none had existed before--also a good thing.  And frankly, I really enjoyed finding the sonnets.  It was gratifying that the videos were able to substitute for discussion of interpretations, giving a sense of what the sonnets were about, as well as their ambiguities (the versions of #130 were particularly good for this).  I believe the students enjoyed the readings as well.

After they completed the worksheet activity, I had them post a comparison/contrast of two versions of the same sonnet to a discussion forum to share with the class--the online equivalent of a brief presentation and an assignment follow-up that I require often, since they are learning from each other to a large degree.  I haven't looked at these yet, but the forum theoretically gives students the opportunity to bring their ideas together into paragraphs rather than leaving them in the chart.

Small Successes I: Paper Activities

So I realize that I haven't had much to say in a while about my class, and in part, I want to record the successes that I've had along the way--things that I hope to repeat in the future.  I know that last time I checked in I was on the verge of despair.  *sigh*  I still have more moments of weariness than enthusiasm, but I haven't felt that bad since that week.  I have also been allowing myself to read for pleasure more, and not forcing myself to read along with everything I assign.  The latter makes me feel like a bad teacher, but it's not as if I'm lecturing on it, so I'll give myself a pass.

One thing that I feel I have done the right way is breaking the steps of the paper down for them and requiring students to "check in" (more or less) to demonstrate that they are working on the paper.  These assignments help them to stretch out the work on the assignment rather than saving it until the last minute.  They give me the opportunity to monitor progress--or not, because for the most part the burden is on them (which I'll explain).  Because they are wrestling with the paper over time, I do, in fact, hear more from them when things aren't going quite right, if they get stuck, etc.  This is definitely a success in an online course.  

What I'm proposing is something that was standard in composition classes--Topic Proposal Memo, Thesis Statement, List of Sources, Outline (maybe), Rough Draft, Final Draft.  Besides teaching time management and giving the opportunity for feedback along the way, we were also making sure that if a student was inclined to plagiarize, the supporting materials would have to be plagiarized, since a paper would not be accepted without them.  That's not really my rationale, since my paper is fairly unique and probably can't just be downloaded.  What is unusual is requiring these steps for a sophomore-level class.  Sophomores are supposed to be able to do these things on their own, right?  And sink or swim?  Well...  not really.  Not in reality. 

One of the amazing things about the online-only class is the opportunities I have along the way to correct what they're thinking about things, how they're interpreting things, how they are expressing their ideas in writing.  In class, if they don't speak, I don't know what they're thinking. Because the class meets every day, there are no assignments designed to let me know what they're thinking--whether they're getting it.  As a result, they don't necessarily get it, and I don't know until the test.  Heck--they don't know until the test.  In this case, I know.  And if we can have a discussion about it where other students can see, I'm actually teaching.  Yay!  This is how being a "guide" instead of a "sage" can still be an important function, requiring a teacher who is insightful and engaged.  

This paper was a beginning lit review, if you will.  My intentions (objectives, really) were to have them be able to write a research question, use it to do research, find scholarly sources on a literary topic, read and summarize, and begin to synthesize the sources in a very basic way in order to present the articles to an audience who wishes to know more about the literary topic in question.  It took a bit of wrangling to get them there, and I haven't graded the papers yet, but I know that learning has happened along the way.

Their supporting activities were:

1. A research question posted to a forum.  Each student had to post a question in order to see others' questions so that they were not influenced beforehand.
2. A bibliography submitted as an assignment to the instructor only.  This gave me the opportunity to check to see whether the sources were scholarly and whether the bibliography format was correct.
3. A rough draft/peer review wiki.  While it did not really function as a peer review, it could have.  Students posted their rough draft to a new page in the wiki.  They could also make changes to theirs (technically they could have to others' as well), and make comments on their and others' drafts.  If they wanted my feedback, they had to solicit it, and one did.  I could have forced each student to comment on another's draft, but feedback-by-coersion is not typically good quality stuff, so I let it go.

I had many questions during the first two stages.  Some were caught up in adhering to the question or making it perfect, so those people learned that research ideas do mutate.  Many, many students learned to construct better database searches.  And at least half of the remaining students had a rough draft in time.  All in all, a success--they did not drift away completely.

These supporting assignments were only worth 25 points each.  At first, I was going to roll these in to the daily grade equivalent--a pathetic 10% (which should be more given the effort).  Instead, I decided to reward their efforts by making the 75 points part of the paper grade, which is 15% of the overall grade.  I believe that the effort of staying on task and the learning activities involved deserve to be 3/7 of the 15%, because they are being rewarded, here, for the considerable effort of learning on their own, being engaged, and asking for assistance when they needed it.

Admitting defeat

I think it's time to face facts.  I probably won't be continuing as an adjunct past this semester.  This makes me terribly sad.  It was fulfilling.  It gave me purpose.  It made me feel important.  It was exciting to develop the activities and search for the extra resources (because I'm not a fan of the textbook resources) and exciting to know that the students were learning, or were making connections, or at the very least, were enjoying the activities and literature.  But as the semester wears on, I have to face facts.  I'm terribly behind.  The level of instruction is sub-par.  And I don't have time to even read the material that I'm teaching because of the 40-hour job, exhaustion, illness (mine), travel (someone else's), grading, and, you know, regular meals and such.  Note that I did not say housework.

Perhaps it's because I made the test too long. I'm grading it question by question and it simply goes on forever.  Because I'm knee-deep in exams (which I don't even think should exist in online courses), I haven't spent as much time interacting with students through the weekly online activities, which means that I miss the learning.  I have a really interesting assignment "out there" that I haven't been able to look at--casting Everyman with conteporary actors.  Perhaps when the exam dust settles I will have time. I only have 6 more questions to grade for each student, but this week has not let me breathe.  In the meantime, I should be posting the assignments for King Lear, and I simply don't have any.  The only reason I'm even teaching Lear is because it's in the textbook and we have to do Shakespeare.  There is another play, but it's a Comedy.  I have a trio of "serious" plays that I'm teaching, so Lear it is.  I like Lear.  A lot.  But so much of this course material seems wasted on an online class.  So in spite of the stimulation, there's a lot of discouragement and feeling that I'm simply not performing up to par.

In life right now... well, I've had a lot going on as well.  Three classes in the past two weeks, one of them new and one of them rather demanding.  Plus, I have been prepping for a conference presentation that was yesterday.  While these things happen at work (8-5), they affect my intellectual energy (and actual energy) when I get home.  These classes have left me feeling overwhelmed--the last thing I want to do is come home and engage with online class activities.  Well, that's not entirely true.  But I need some decompression time that I never seem to get.   Particularly this week, when my husband is traveling for the high profile part of his job.  *sigh*  I have been feeling that this position is for someone older, with grown children, or better paid, with a trophy (second) wife who doesn't work.  Certainly not for a family man with young children and a wife who would like to make a career for herself one day, and keeps struggling in that direction in spite of failure and setbacks.  And when my helpful teenager goes off to college... I don't even want to think about it.  Then, I will feel really alone when these trips happen.

It is just too much.  I'm not sure the happiness I gain is worth the cost.  But... I still don't think teaching online is the problem.  The problem is being a full-time 40-hr employee somewhere and teaching as an extra.  Because it's not a hobby. I joked that it was, but you can't truly make a passion for your job into a hobby.  It demands too much time and energy because you want to do it.  And then you can't.  And sadly, I don't think I can.

The Frustrations of Being Scheduled

Today, I'm reeling from the chaos of the weekend.  One of the side-effects of adjuncting is that I have to make time for myself to work.  Or, rather, I have to scehdule myself non-negotiable times to work which then bleed into every aspect of my life when I'm not working my 40-hour job.  I actually rather like sponteneity.  But now, it seems, in order for me to feel like I've done what I need to do for the day... or evening... or weekend... I need to stick (at least partially) to my schedule.  And I hate it.  Becuase when I don't get off on the right foot, I feel utterly dissatisfied.  Enter the weekend.

I have no idea what Friday looked like.  I can't remember that far back.  I think there were fish sticks involved.  Ah yes--Friday.  The day I did not leave the office for lunch, making me feel like I didn't accomplish a thing all day.  A good start.  Last week was pretty busy at work-work, and I have everything to grade, from the last thing we covered before the first exam (Chaucer) to the exam itself, which I am grading question by question instead of exam by exam.  I have realized in so doing that my exam was too long--for me, not for them--and that I need some objevtive questions:  nice, self-grading, multiple choice. After 4 or so grading sessions, I have finally whittled them down to 6 test questions left.

On Saturday, my daugther usually has archery practice.  This Saturday, she did not.  So everyone slept in.  The problem is that I have office hours at 10 A.M.--this is my "good start" to the weekend.  I guess I should have seen it coming.  I suppose I should have said explicitly--WAKE ME UP.  But I didn't.  So they let me sleep. It was a little bit gloomy and sort of cold, so I slept.  I woke at 10:42, realizing that I was well past the start of office hours--so why start now?  I went to the living room, was promptly pestered about the impending birthday party for a friend at 3 P.M., and went to bathe and get dressed.  We ate bagels and had coffee and then went to run errands, including the purchase of the party present.  Well, the errands were frustrating.  In one case, there was a startling encounter with a rude and crass person who made gestures that no one over the age of 15 should really make toward anyone, much less a harmless car full of strangers including two young children.  So... lovely.  By the time we went home, it was party time.  I did not go.  Rather, I stayed with the other two children and contemplated backing up my hard drive so that I could buy more RAM--which would make actually working on my 2011 MacBook Pro a possibility.  Failing to find the cords for the extrenal hard drive, I went to Best Buy and purchased a 64GB flash drive and the 8GB memory sticks for my computer.  Then I went back in Best Buy to get the sale price I had been promised hours earlier.  By the time I got home again, the birthday party attendees had returned.  My files finished transferring to the flash drive.  Begin part two of Saturday.

My husband occupies a visible position in an international scholarly initiative.  He is the face of his project, you might say.  And as I type, he is on his way to Mexico, all of which causes its own fits of angst.  But I am very proud of him, and the reputation he has gained, and because I wanted him to look the part, and because we finally sort of have the money for him to look the part (not that I'm not having retroactive hives a bit because of spending it), I suggested suit shopping.  And that took a couple of hours, but yeilded great results.  After that foray, we bought our third non-homecooked meal of the DAY (I hate that) and headed home, where the starving (well, not quite) children were.  We ate, I might have done something or other with a batch of clothes, and then the memory instillation happened. It was wonderful. Still is.  No problems.  Twice the RAM.  No more minute delay starting Microsoft Word.  I barely even noticed iPhoto trying to import photos from my phone.  A new era has begun.  And yet, you might notice that I still have not, at this point, done any actual work for my class.  This is what happens when I get off to the wrong start on Saturday.  And... frustration ensues.

So of course, I had to do work.  I had to.  And by this time, it was night.  Before, during, and after the girls went to bed, I worked on the class.  There was no prep for the religious ed--but that's a whole different matter.  And the result was that I was keyed up and didn't sleep well, which starts a whole cycle.

Sunday was cold and wet; religious ed.  Mass.  Both were fine, which is great.  An uneventful Sunday is a good Sunday.  We went to two different locations of our favorite chinese restaurant, and had some editorial comments by the staff on our seating choice (a booth) and our order (that's a lotta food--umm, yes).  Went home, and I'm not sure what else I did besides work on the class--grading, activities, grading, emailing a student who wanted more generic help on everything.  Oh yes!  I helped coordinate dress clothes options for my husband who was packing. I stopped working at midnight or so, and could do nothing else--I mean, I could have, but it was time for bed, as we would have to get up early to coordinate shuttles to catch flights and children to school and whatnot.   But having only one parent in the morning is hard.  Besides that on Sunday I started looking around and the chaos and realizing that with only one parent in the house, that chaos was MY chaos--and mine alone.  I think I just got moodier until bed.  And working up until bed is bad for me.

So now my week starts.  And it is a hectic week--one 2-day (6 hr) class to teach on Outlook, a presentation to give in between, no helpmeet.  And I feel like I did nothing during the weekend, because I didn't get off to the right start on Saturday.  And I gave up trashy romance novels (a recent guilty pleasure) for Lent.  So no escapism.  *sigh*  Oh, and I haven't written anything in over a week because I had the bright idea to revise the older novel instead of fleshing out the new.  Feeling so unproductive and busy and behind and frustrated and resentful.

I'm fine, really! -or- If you don't have your health...

No, really!  I am!  I'm not feeling stressed, though I guess I am.  See the post about down time.  That was sort of a low point.  I feel like my expectations are becoming a bit more realistic.  I am striving to have the next week's unit done in time for it to be released to the students, rather than trying to build up a queue of 2 or three to give myself space.  The grading, which I feared, is not bad.  I simply work through several submitted assignments a day (more or less) and then work on prepping or researching the lesson that needs to go up.  I'm a little behind.  The Chaucer lesson is 2/3 of the way done.  It was released on Monday with the Wife of Bath module listed as "Coming soon!"  But since they haven't even finished the Old English poetry unit (the first one) and they have a short module on Arthurian history/romance, I can't say I'm worried that they're going to be champing at the bit for the Wife of Bath.  I wouldn't.  Would you?

My problem is that I have some odd little pains in my chest throughout the day that worry me a bit.  Over the summer, I had a couple of weeks when I was feeling like my heart was racing quite a lot, and similar little pains.  Some shortness of breath.  The pains felt like the horrible stabbing heartburn that I had when I was pregnant with daughter #1.  The shortness of breath felt like anxiety.  By thinking about it, I seemed to make it worse.  There was a lot going on at the time.  A trip to Ft. Worth with just the kids because my usual traveling companion was traveling for work.  A proposed trip to visit a campus with my oldest (though we didn't make it). When my husband travels, I get anxious.  When I travel, I get anxious.

I decided to go to a doctor and see whether this was a problem.  I had spoken to my OBGYN months before about the palpitations (which had already stopped by the time I saw her), and she said if it returned, she could set me up with a monitor.  That seemed extreme when they returned in August or so.  So I went to a family practitioner.  She was young--too young--and seemed more occupied with her shadowing med student than me.  She did an EKG.  Hello??? EKG???  (Which, I should say was perfectly fine.  Beautiful.  And all of my levels were normal to on the high side of normal.) And referred me to a cardiologist.  Done.  Well, that seemed extreme.  I didn't go.  I stopped taking my vitamins (which seemed to be contributing to the effect). We switched permanently from Starbucks ground coffee to Mystic Monk, which I prefer anyway.  That, for some reason, made a HUGE difference.  And life continued with no further thumpings or beatings or racings. Until now.

The doctor did ask if I had a stressful lifestyle.  I said no.  I pondered that after, trying to figure out what I really meant by "stressful."  So this is a post about work-life balance.

I have not changed my coffee--well, okay.  I was drinking an extra cup, bringing my daily total up to two--in addition to my Dr. Pepper, soft drink of choice, which is not daily, but close.  But the small stabbing pains--anxiety? heartburn? something else?--have returned, and I get short of breath sometimes.  The heart racing isn't as it was--so the Starbucks must have been a serious contributing factor (though I can still buy their drinks without a problem).  But something feels different, not quite normal, and the same as before.

And all I can think of is that question about stress.  What is stress?  I answered "no" because I was generally happy (if not quite satisfied with my work situation), and didn't feel overwhelmed or unable to cope with what I had to do.  I'm not sure if I believe that "busy" is the same as stressed.  When I have felt most stressed recently (last fall), it has had to do with others' illnesses, teacher matters, and general family interactions.  Not simply the daily living of my life--except insofar as those things influence the daily living of my life.  So okay, I live a stressful lifestyle.  Sometimes.

Right now, I have more on my plate than ever, but I'm coping surprisingly well.  So what's with the pains and the heart and the lungs??  I am teaching religious ed.  That is stressful.  My older daugther is in 4-H archery.  She had a competition over the weekend that she wasn't ready for, and my heart aches for that. Of course, everyone around me is dropping like flies to some plague or other, so that's stressful. My younger daughter's school situation has improved since last semester, as has my son's (12th grade), so that's good.   Money isn't really a problem now as it has been.  I work at work, of course, but that's rarely stressful.  I have my class that I'm teaching online, which means that my evenings and weekends are occupied with work, which is often hard to come to terms with.  I do other things, too, but it feels like I am constantly working.  However, I am also engaged.  My mind is active and I am happier and more satisfied with everything.  I am writing more on the blog and in a notebook (creatively), which is good.  But I am busy.  Busy, busy, busy.  I don't read on the sofa in the evenings--I work.  I don't slump against my husband's shoulder on the sofa and doze a bit before bed--because I'm working.  I don't sleep as well. I'm often dreaming about something work-related.  Last night I dreamt that I had borrowed the velvet Victorianesque ensemble of an author I like without asking, and was modeling it and trying to get it back before she noticed.  Huh.  A good night is when I don't remember what I dream.  I'm dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, all the time.  Maybe it's the coffee (I've cut back down to one cup).  Maybe it's late night engagement.

So is my lifestyle stressful?  I'm inclined to say no at the moment.  But it is sleep-deprived. And I'm on.  All the time.  I'm thinking the sleep might be the problem.  When my husband travels, I don't sleep.  I often stay awake until 3 A.M.--listening.  Because I'm the only one around to protect everyone.  I will also fall asleep with or in a book.  This accounts, perhaps, for the symptoms over the summer and connects them to what I'm feeling now.

I'm most peaceful these days when writing--reflective, contemplative activity.  A substitute for sleep, perhaps?

Because I can't not be...

Lately, the conversation going on around me (online) has centered, to a large degree, on an article about the writer's life, and particularly, how writers treat, or lie about, the sources of income that allow them to write.  While this doesn't directly apply to me, it has spawned some conversation that does apply to me, and also some thought.

I am not a writer.  I mean, I am a writer.  I call myself "a compulsive writer in search of a subject," and that works for me rather nicely.  Sometimes, I have to write.  I am also a compulsive blog-creator, though I have two right now that are actually active.  I am also trying to put together a story (I guess you would call it a novel, but for now it's just a story), which means that I do sneak 10-minute intervals at lunch and sometimes at work.  But I have never deluded myself that I could make money by writing, even though I was an English major and seriously considered the creative writing "track" (which would have required a class on the history of the English language, and I wasn't up for that at the time).  Even now, the idea of writing fiction for profit seems laughable to me, although I know people who are doing it, trying to do it, or claiming to do it, as the case may be.  Each and every one of them does, in fact, have another source of income though, so the claims are dubious.

It might be because I grew up in New Orleans that I was never deluded about "making a living" as a writer.  I'm not sure that my crowd ever aspired to the kind of lifestyle that everyone seems to want these days--at least in Texas.  A modest house and the ability to eat and pay the bills while not working so hard you were miserable seemed to be what most of us wanted--except, of course, that we were also creative types who could not imagine living without writing or acting.  My English teachers never made it sound like writing for a living was a thing--creative writing or otherwise.  All of the writers I knew were teachers.  I never felt deluded for a moment, even when our junior English class attended the gala for the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society as a reward for stuffing envelopes.  The writer's lifestyle was normal living and this, too.  But we were certainly encouraged to try.  And I have, though not with as much dedication as when I was an undergrad getting rejection slips from The Southern Review.  

So in New Orleans, which has a literary culture, I was never told that writing would or could or should be my life.  Frankly, I thought getting advanced degrees and teaching college was a much more practical plan that would still make time for include necessitate writing.  It might be that I was a poet--no one makes money from poetry.  Poets write poetry because poets have to write poetry.  I thought that was simply how it worked.  I am a writer because writers have to write and I have to write.  (No, that's not exactly a run-on.)  And, in a similar vein, I got a Ph.D. becuase I had to get a Ph.D.  Not because I was particularly... whatever people think.  It was simply something I had to do because I couldn't not do it.  (Not doing it would mean getting a real job, and I'm still not ready for that!)  I guess I feel sorry for starry-eyed people who think they can make a living writing novels (some do, but I would bet even fewer than those who land tenure track positions).  Except I don't really feel sorry for them because hello? Reality.  It's all around us.  People.  Working.  Again, I call myself a "cynical idealist."  This might be why.

So working to write.  I get that.  Having someone else working so that you can write.  I guess I get that, but to a lesser degree.  That kind of lifestyle requires more privilege than I have ever had, if only so that the bills that you have in order to have home and food and transportation are not greater than the one income, or to avoid massive student loan debt because there was help from other places.  It's not something I envy, it's simply something I didn't have.  And yes, I made the choice to have more student debt.  I don't really regret that either.

What I find strange and unsettling is that having a Ph.D., aspiring to make a living as an academic, whether or not one lands a tenure track job, is regarded as just as ridiculous as aspiring to make a living as a writer, if not more so since there's a glamour about writing, and academics are subject to more negative stereotypes in many corners.

What I also find strange and unsettling is that I'm a teacher--and I'm a teacher because I can't not teach.  Like being a writer.  Like when I thought I would be a poet.  And so I adjunct.  Which means that I have to have a day job.  Some adjuncts teach many classes at ALL of the colleges so that they can scrape together a living while retaining the purity of their pursuit.  These are the ones starving in the hedgerows and complaining about it.  I'm a scab.  A strikebreaker.  The one who goes to work while others are picketing outside.  Because I don't really need the pay, I rather feel as though I'm supporting a corrupt system that exploits the abundant overeducated labor force.  Writers don't really have to face that.  Writing is a glamorous, solitary occupation with a "high and lonely destiny." Teaching requires an infrastructure.  And I'm also an online teacher. For an online only branch campus that wants its online academic instructors to be adjunct only.  That's a whole different level of scabbiness.  But heck.  The adjunct-only adjuncts probably do more to support a system that keeps me (and themselves) out of teaching full time, simply because they're there to exploit, whereas I said no.  I would not be exploited.

So what I keep coming back to is this:  I am working full-time, not to support my writing habit, but to support my teaching habit.  My unglamorous, slightly suspect, scabby little teaching habit.  Because I'm a teacher, and teachers are compelled to teach.

Food for thought.

Adjuncting Week 2: Wearing down already?

My online British Literature class started last Tuesday.  This is week 2, but that's a little deceptive.  I have been working on this class all month, but now there are students and things to grade.  I look at myself, and I know that in spite of the excitement, I'm wearing down.

The ideal would be to have the new lessons/new material set up several weeks in advance--or since I am workign by "Topics" rather than "Weeks," a few Topics in advance.  But I didn't manage to get a head start because I was setting up the orientation and framework in an unfamiliar interface.  Still--I am on time, and since they're working at their own pace, and since Topic 1's deadlines aren't until next Monday, it's good that I have Topic 2 up and running.  If anyone legitimately wants to work ahead (and I have one who is trying to game the system by not reading and turning in b/s), they can do so.

My nerves are a little thin.  I turned to the blog after snapping at a friend on Facebook--and someone who tends to give me the benefit of the doubt--because I felt like I was being called out for being an obnoxious pain.  This followed a casual chat (ha) with a co-worker about a conference abstract we submitted that was heavily edited by our boss before submission and without my permission, that I now have to live with.  So that was definitely a contributing factor.

Here I am on a Monday, returning to work.  I have a project to work on, and a 6-hour Business Writing class (training session) that I do not want to teach tomorrow.  My weekend felt a little frenetic.  Heck, so did my week.  I get through my workdays now by looking forward to getting off of work--so that I can go home and work.  It's not ideal, even if it is a generally positive thing.

What's going on with the class is this:

• Students needed to complete orientation lessons, take a quiz, and post instructor and peer introductions by last Friday.
• I have followed up (or tried to follow up) with those who did not complete that lesson, or who completed the quiz with less than 90% correct.
• I have graded most of the introductions that have been submitted, and all of the quizzes.
• Students are working on the Old English Poetry topic (or unit).  They have another week to complete it.
• The Matter of Britain/Arthurian topic is up for those who are working ahead.
• I need to get the Chaucer unit ready to go (and I don't particularly like Chaucer).
• I want to compose a Week 2 Announcement that reviews what students should have accomplished/learned by now.

I am taking my time grading the Introductions because I feel like the introduction is an important place to establish a relationship with students by responding to their concerns and commenting on their goals.  It's time-consuming, but also rewarding.

My weekend felt like a lot of grading, which I did in many blocks.  It also involved a lot of emailing and entering zeroes.  I checked in with my good friend who is coaching me through this (even though it is not her job to do so) frequently. When I wasn't doing basic bookkeeping, I was reading and finding and typing quotations for a quote analysis exercise, formatting that worksheet, and posting it to the online course.  Although I thought that the topic was ready to go live early Sunday (It went live 12 A.M. on Monday), I realized after my girls were asleep (probably about 10:30 P.M.) that I had completely forgotten one of the key pieces I wanted to add--clips from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I had to find the clips, make sure they weren't internet fakes, and post them, then create the accompanying discussion board--all before cutting my husband's hair (which I like to do so that I have control over how short it is), bathing (to get off the cut hair), and going to bed.  

The weekend felt a bit out of control. In reality, I did things other than work on the class.  We got tires for our Highlander at SAM's and did some shopping.  I made some returns--two pairs of boots that I ordered online that did not fit and a pair of jeans that I ordered that were not supposed to be black--and bought some Origins for my son, who is trying to fight acne with minimal medical intervention.  We went to the vigil mass (so that we did not have to attend the parish at which I am co-teaching religious ed).  I drank two nice, dark beers--that's excessive for me.  I taught religious ed on Sunday morning--completely without prior preparation, as it turns out, because my co-teacher can't decide what our respective roles are or whether she is able to be responsible for the lesson consistently. We went to Target (as a family--which is how we do most things) and ate at McAlister's.  I folded many baskets of clothes because I knew that if I approached the computer, I would grade introductions, and the work I had already done had left me achy and bleary and fuzzy-headed.  But there seemed to be very little down time.  I didn't read anything recreational.

I mention the achiness.  I was dreadfully afraid that I was getting the flu, but I wasn't.  The constant working does seem to be taking its toll in a couple of ways, though, and I felt achy from Friday to Sunday.  I have also felt a teeny bit queasy every evening from Wednesday, when I had to get off the phone with my mom because I was not feeling well, to Sunday.  I do tend to get this way from being over-tired, and I have been forcing myself to keep going by means of caffeine.  Otherwise, my evenings had/would have been spent on the sofa with a book, curling up in my husband's shoulder and (often) falling asleep.  An extra cup of coffee is taking care of that.  And my stomach wants to protest a bit.  I might be getting some extra heart-palpitations--which had mainly gone away when I switched from brewing Starbucks coffee at home to Mystic Monk.

Yet--I can't deny that in a lot of ways, I'm happier.  I'm more creative.  I'm engaged.  I bought some notebooks to try to write a little of the story I started three years or so ago--at least during weekdays. My vocabulary is even a bit different.  But I miss my down-time.  And I feel behind with the class.  Stretched--too thin--like butter over too much bread.  But there are only so many hours in the day, and between 8 and 5, I'm forbidden to work on the class.

And that's how it stands at the beginning of Week 2.

A New Chapter: Adjuncting

After a recent academic job search disappointment, I wrote my last post--a letter to potential committees--and removed my half-baked attempt to synthesize my past life as an academic and my present life as an 8-to-5-er from the blog.  I don't know if I envisioned a fresh start or not, but here I am....

And it really is a fresh start.  It is a new year, and I have taken a brave and ambitious move into adjuncting--online adjuncting.  It suits me.  I like technology when it is working for me--not simply to play with it.  I like the idea of teaching a class that is self-paced.  I like being able to develop a class at leisure, if you will--without the "what will I do NOW, TODAY" pressure.  Not that I don't work well with that pressure, but I do find that if my emphasis is on the next class meeting, I am less likely to really develop the larger picture.  It's all about "do I lecture, or do I make them do stuff on their own?" Well, it's all on their own, and while there's the question of how I will convey the information that I feel is essential, there's not the pressure for me to perform it in front of a class--to know what to say and how to answer the question that someone will ask that I am unprepared to answer (though I still do that in my day job).

Don't Give Up Your Day Job

I know that I am in a pretty privileged position as an adjunct--and. . . that's okay with me.  This is the way to do it, really.  I guess I was never quite as idealistic as I assumed--or I like to eat.  One of the two.

I read an article today about a so-called "college professor" who is "highly educated" and yet can't make ends meet.  I read about these things all the time.  I admit that I feel a little more smug than I should--for all of my angst, I stand behind my decision to get a job that would allow my family a reasonable amount of comfort rather than running around in pursuit of adjunct positions.  Although I did have a couple of non-adjunct positions I could have taken,and would not technically have had to adjunct;  I still would have been earning less than I do in my full-time job, whatever the other benefits might have been (and clearly I wasn't convinced that those benefits would have been worth it).

Full-time adjuncting?  Yeah.  Sounds like hell to me. I'm afraid that adjuncting "on the side," almost as a--I laugh a little as I say it--hobby is really the way to do it.  And I was fortunate to find a school that needs its online adjuncts--more than I need them, as my friend who is a full-time faculty member of one of the college's branches tells me.

With the financial security of two good salaries--which, for the first time, bump us into a very interesting income-bracket--I almost forget that the school will be paying me.  That sounds terrible, doesn't it?  But the amount they're paying me would be highly insignificant if adjuncting was my only source of income.  It's still fairly insignificant, but in a different way.  And that's liberating.  I can focus on the parts I enjoy rather than the injustice of it all.

Working ALL. THE. TIME.

One of my deep reservations, and the reason that I have never pursued adjuncting before, even with a community college in the neighborhood (which is overwhelmed with a glut of grad students), is that I didn't necessarily absolutely didn't want to work all the time.  But I'm afraid it's starting.  The semester starts next Tuesday for the school that has hired me to teach (it's a strange and wonderful thing, after all of this time, to have a school hire me to teach).  Students are able to access the online course starting this week--this past Tuesday, in fact.  And while I am not obligated to have any content up for them this first non-week, a friend advised that the orientation lesson can (and probably should) go up so that they can start practicing navigating the online course.  So all of last week, last weekend, and all of this week, I worked my job, came home, and assembled or created the pieces of my class to meet deadlines.  It was....  a little exhilarating, actually.  Particularly the parts when I realize that I do know this stuff after all, or when I use my knowledge of technology (gained from my day job) to create something that I think will engage the students.  I have needed to up my coffee intake by adding a cup in the (early) evening.  I only drink one usually, so that's not too bad.  (Particularly when most adjuncts I know cope by drinking a different type of beverage...)

It will catch up with me.  Last night it was catching up with me a bit.  I didn't have the second cup of coffee. I was depressed because the new boots that I can afford ordered online didn't fit.  And I felt tired--so tired--and aware that I should be doing something for my class.  When I was going to bed, I remembered--I had done something for my class!!  I designed a "wrap-up" essay question for the Old English poetry section that synthesized the things I wanted them to watch/read.  So the evening was not quite a waste.

I also talked on the phone to my mom, and (earlier) listened to my daughter read her school reader (in Spanish, though I don't speak it--much).  The night before I felt bad because I didn't listen to her read.  I rather vehemently suggested that Daddy could listen to her read.  While I was just as likely to do so for any other reason--cooking, composing a blog post, or whatever--I didn't like doing it.  It felt more selfish to be putting her off for a second job that I didn't need to take for any reason other than my perverse failure to feel fulfilled by the other things I have in my life.  So that will take balance.  And one day, if I do achieve gainful academic employment, maybe I will have a summer month to spend with her and her sister.

On the other hand, the work doesn't always feel like work.  It feels like engagement--something that I miss completely in my day job.  I show up; I do stuff; I go home.  They pay me well and I work with some cool people.  But I have nothing to challenge my mind.  Even the things that should challenge me in that context are things that I find absolutely boring.  But packaging early British Lit--not easy stuff in a traditional classroom setting--for the web, and trying to maximize student engagement so that they actually take something away from the class?  That is a challenge worthy of me.

I have no illusions.  I will get tired.  I will get bogged down.  And inevitably, I will get behind.  The novelty will fade, and I will have two jobs.  Maybe.  On the other hand, I will be communicating online with people about literature.  And that's sort of what I do.  So maybe--just maybe--this will be a good thing.

Tone Word Wordle

Back-to-school Reflections

Having rediscovered my old blog while trying to get out some unrelated frustration, I read a post or two about going back to school when back-to-school meant I was going to be teaching and the children were going to be in child care.  And while I do miss the newness that is the beginning of the school year, and I hate that the job simply goes on and on and on now, with no beginning, no end, and very little change, I emphatically do not miss the uncertainty of who was to go where, trying to avoid putting the very young children in child care for longer than I thought was good, and the guilt of not doing the things that I thought I should be doing with them while they were young.  So looking forward to the beginning of the school year, which starts on August 25th here, I will attempt some reflections.

Doodle and Chiclette, as they were named many years ago on the blog, are now going into 3rd and 1st grade, respectively.  Looking at this blog, that's a bit surreal.  They are attending a lovely school, where Doodle has been going for 4 years, Chiclette 2.  But there are changes afoot!  The school has a new principal and a new assistant principal, who will hopefully leave well enough alone.  A beloved coach (I can't believe I used those words together) will be a classroom teacher this year.  And who knows what else awaits us?

Doodle has many friends from previous years, but each year, several move away.  Because it is a college town, and we are living in one of the areas with less stable population, many people graduate and move away.  So we already know that at least two of her best friends will not be there in the fall, which is sad.  Last year, none of her friends from her previous years were in class with her, which was also a disappointment.  Luckily, she makes friends easily.  She also has a high tolerance for torment as we learned from her teacher last year when we approached her about a boy who seemed to be tormenting Doodle consistently.  She didn't tell the teacher because even if she is annoyed, she does not want to get others in trouble.  *sigh*

I worry a bit about Doodle, because she is proficient enough to easily make good grades, but not needy enough to get extra attention.  Meaning, she is not always noticed--whether she excels or not.  And I worry that she will not be challenged.  She did not make G/T last year, though she was placed in an enrichment class (G/T - lite).  The gifted and talented program in our school district identifies only children who are academically gifted, and also has to represent all races equally, leaving some to be excluded because of overrepresentation.  By 3rd grade, if we do not have her working a year ahead, she will not test into G/T.  Last year, her art teacher, who noticed Doodle in particular in Kinder and 1st, did not seem to pay any attention at all to her, which was disappointing.  She will do well, and she values that--which is good.  She simply doesn't get the recognition she deserves for being smart.

I have enrolled her in 4-H, which is exciting!  In June, she took a 1-hour class every weekday for a month in archery.  It's a "summer enrichment" in the public school, and both girls were enrolled in 3-4 different classes.  She enjoyed the archery, and would like to continue, so we're going to try that out!

Chiclette is involved in the Dual Language program, which is an immersion English/Spanish program for native speakers of both languages.  It is inherently challenging, which is good.  Again, though, Chiclette flies under the radar a bit.  There are high-maintenance children, and she is not.  She also seems to learn without much effort. She also did not test into the Gifted program, but by a much closer margin--3 percentage points or thereabouts.  What I worry about with her is motivation.  She only read 5 or 6 of the take-home readers all year--she simply wasn't interested.  And I have a hard time enforcing reading.  But she advanced several reading levels nonetheless.

I have some reservations about the Dual Language program.  Chiclette is amazingly attuned to language, and needs a challenge, so it is very good for her.  But it is literally its own little separate community within the school.  The teachers cultivate that--trying to create a bond between the families, in part so that we will have a support network when homework gets difficult, and so that the kids (and parents) will form friendships and will not want to leave the program before the "mandatory" 5 or 6 year commitment.  What this means is that there are events for Dual Language only.  And what THAT means is that during these events, the children run wild in the school while the parents socialize.  I disapprove of both forced socialization with other parents and parent neglect of their ill-behaved children.  I also disapprove of the air of priviledge that this gives the teachers, children, and parents in Dual Language.  I have a child who is not Dual Language, so I am attuned to the differences.  Many of these families--or the non-native speakers of Spanish--are Dual Language "dynasties" with multiple siblings passing through the program.  Those parents are very well known, and chat with the teachers at events to the exclusion of newer parents--particularly those who work and have less time to volunteer.  These are also the parents who spend summer vacationing in Mexico.  I have also been on a field trip with Doodle's grade, during which the Dual Language classes were grouped with Doodle's non-DL class for the field trip.  I was unimpressed by the snobbery of the 2nd grade DL teachers, the parents, and the behavior of the children--who were rounded up by whistle at the end of the lunch period because they were "bonding" so vigorously with each other, running all over the lawn.  Even more unfortunately, the male DL 2nd grade teacher was arrested later in the year for inappropriate conduct with past students at a different school--which is not the fault of the program, but contributes to the overall bad feeling.  However, Chiclette is social, so she does "mingle" with other children at other times--particularly after school.

Perhaps because of Dual Language, Chiclette--unlike Doodle--seems to be completely overlooked by the nonacademic teachers--art and the like.  (I get the impression that the DL group is high-maintenance.)  Well, the coach I mentioned earlier, seems to like both girls--and seems to be one of the few who links the girls together.   Doodle is sunny and friendly.  Chiclette is very friendly as well, but she's a little bit wry in her sense of humor, and she will protest things that she doesn't like, and state her opinion (as will Doodle, but differently).  You can imagine that I'm proud.  But she is devoted to her friends (one in particular!), and adores cute things.  Sometimes, it's easy to forget how young she really is when she states that she is "infuriated" by the video game, but then she coos and makes goo-goo eyes because she thinks a baby toy or a stuffed animal is cute.  At those times, something inside me cries for her innocence in a fallen world.

In her manner, she resembles her brother, who I believe was unnamed on the blog previously!  Hmmm...  Big brother is cynical, but makes goo-goo eyes when we watch Too Cute on Animal Planet.  He also has a rather encyclopedic knowledge of My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic, without being a "Brony" (a casualty of babysitting two small girls).  He is 17, and entering--drum roll please--12th grade.  And that is completely surreal.  So we are readying ourselves for college applications--he is trudging a bit, not really comfortable with the unknown, and not really wanting to leave home.  He is also staring down about 5 AP courses this year--not a "blow off" year, by any means.  I don't expect him to take that many AP tests--those are simply the courses that are available to him.  He is entering his eigth year playing the cello, and his third year in Varsity Orchestra.  I believe that at this point, music is what interests him the most in school.  There have been years when I have felt that orchestra was easily the most valuable thing that he has done during the year.  He has also mentioned graphic design and (heaven help us) ENGLISH as possible areas of study, though what English departments have made of literary study is not something I think he would enjoy.

So that's what the year looks like.  It is nice to know that they have a routine again, though I dread the routine.  I will miss having them at home, because home feels like a territory that I can control, and I hate being out of control.  I'm trying not to think of that.  I will also miss having lunch at home with them--a little bit of "normal" in my workday.  (No, work is not normal.  It is completely artificial.)  After school, they have an after-school program which is a good program, but it is still too much time away from home.  They should ideally be off no later than 3.  But in spite of my dissatisfaction and concerns, they long for the other children and for their teachers, so it is a time of excitement for them.  And really, I don't want to end on a sad note.  It should be exciting.  But I'm never quite ready to send them back.

Notes on Grading: Pacing Ourselves and Blind Submissions

In my current training position, I adminster two "certificate programs," which are a collection of classes that staff members take in order to develop a certain skill area.  The ones I administer develop basic competency in Microsoft Office and more general entry-level competencies for administrative professionals (software and soft skills).  The certificate program requires a final project which attempts to bring together and demonstrate the skills that were gained through the classes, while also providing an additional teaching opportunity, since unlike in the classroom, in the real world, a document is not finished until it is presentable.  Recently, speaking with the person who previously administered one of my certificate programs, I confessed to her that I was rarely ever busy, and she expressed a great deal of surprise:  she was always very busy with the certificate projects.  This puzzled me at first.  I don't get many projects at a time, and when I put my mind to it, I can get through the components and give feedback very quickly.  After all--there's no grade to put on the paper.  And then it occurred to me:  I am used to this.  Much more used to it than she was, since I taught writing, and had to give clear, focused feedback that stressed how to improve--even if the advice was never actually applied.

Thinking about grading, I remember it as the most odious task of teaching.  And yet, here I am, skimming quickly through these documents created for the certificate program, giving feedback, receiving resubmissions.  The one major difference is volume.  There are times, like now, when I do get all three parts of the project at one time, or components from three or four different certificate program participants.  But that's it.  And really?  It's not so bad.  I look through them.  I tell them what changes to make.  I send them back.  They get to them whenever they can.  This would be the ideal model for online distance learning, though of course I would have to assign grades at some point.  But then I wonder--if sitting back and giving feedback is relatively easy, what is it that made grading so odious?

The answer has to be the bulk of essays and the time pressure.  I hate to feel pressured, and yet it is necessary for me to feel pressured or I will accomplish nothing but blog posts or Facebook status updates--sad though that is to write.  So why not stagger deadlines or feedback sessions?  (Feedback sessions were my way of justifying particularly long turnaround times for graded papers.  Feedback on the previous paper and the grade would be given along with advice for the next paper during a session of office hours.  There would be a sign-up sheet.  Sometimes these would replace class for a couple of days.)

This stays with me.  Why do we grade papers in bulk?  It's the dominant method, but whom does it serve?  Not the instructor, who has this mountain of intimidation to face.  Even when I was interested in the topics, or looking forward to reading student responses to an assignment, anticipation of the grading marathon inevitably forced me to procrastination.

Does grading in bulk serve the students?  This is a harder question, because the grading inevitably becomes sloppier, the comments less helpful, the grades more arbitrary the deeper I get into the stack. And yet, I think one reason that we would not give out papers until everyone's paper had been graded was to maintain the semblence (illusion?) of fairness.  But their is always some bias.  The more workshops I attend on "subtle bias," and the longer I work in an office around people who are supposed to be aware of their biases, the more I conclude what I already believed--that bias is inevitable. Most of it, however, is personal.  There were students whose papers I graded harder, though I didn't mean to, because they were pushing my buttons in class, or because they thought they were smart, or because I knew (and I hated it when teachers did this to me) that they could do better.  Maybe I wasn't guilty of each one of these.  I certainly did what I could to avoid it, but sometimes perhaps only blind submissions would have prevented it.

Where I failed in grading was usually through the carelessness of exhanustion.  The last papers came after the previous papers, and looked either a lot better... or else a lot worse by comparison.  I was tired and weary of errors and repetition.  My handwriting got sloppy.  Inevitably, I had promised these grades by the next day and would catch hell or reproving glances if I did not deliver.  My feedback got thin or harsh.  And I probably didn't think as much about the grade, perhaps relying solely on my rubric to avoid the unclouded judgment that 2 A.M. (or 30 minutes before class) would not grant.

So given my insight, what would I do differently?  Well, for starters, I would like to see papers come in at a trickle rather than in bulk.  With a clear head and a clear idea of the objectives of the assignment and how to determine whether those objectives were met, I think the inconsistency of grading would take care of itself without having to "rank" papers and compare A to A and B to B and so on (which I never had time to do anyway, though that was the ideal).

But what about fairness and due dates?  In the real world, different people have different deadlines.  That's just the way of things.  You can't complain of fairness forever, because at some point it breaks down.  It could break down here, but there would be a lot of whining.  So let's randomize it.  Each student gets a number.  Numbers 1-5 turn in their papers on the first day.  Numbers 6-10 on the second day, and so on.  Numbers change with each paper assignment throughout the semester.

And while we're randomizing, keep your name off of your paper!  I'll record your name and number separately, and in the meantime, I will grade your paper blind.  I won't know whether you're a male writing a feminist paper, a light-skinned person writing about minority issues, a female writing a reactionary paper, and so on; I also won't know whether you're the one who sits up front with the sandals and the ingrown toenail or the smart-aleck who amuses me until you overstep the boundaries.  I won't know if you're the one who never says anything or the one who talks incessantly (to your fellow athletes) or texts while I'm talking.  And that will be for the better.  Unless you talk to me during office hourse about you're paper.  Then, I will know you--and that will be to your advantage. So really, it will be like an online class, or like the certificate projects.  I will grade gradually, as the papers come in, and I will know nothing about you, or will have forgotten everything I know.  So much for bias.

Now, about grading and returning papers--basically, workflow.  What would this look like?  Ideally, the grading would begin as the papers are submitted.  If 5 are submitted on Monday, those 5 should be read and comments written by Wednesday's class--or even by Tuesday.  If the grading stops, the papers pile up and the system doesn't work.  Since this system is based on an online process, it is well-suited to online feedback, though it could work with paper as well.  But stacks of papers bother me more than quantities of email, so I would eschew paper and opt for electronic communication.

And yes, classes go on, and someone still has to teach them.  But in between the classes are the office hours, when perhaps someone will grade me with their presence--but perhaps not.  And I will grade.  Because after all, when you're working 40-hours a week, you're pretty much expected to be productive while the clock is ticking.  There would certainly be additional opportunities for flexibility in an academic job as compared to an office job--grading/office hours in the library, for example.  The loss would be working in place.  The gain would be time to research or write, or do the more pleasurable parts of the job, like reading or prepping, or even *gasp* time to spend with friends and family outside of the grading-teaching time frame (whatever it might be).  This is how I would do it.

If it sounds rather like I would be tricking myself into doing work, that's probably accurate.  But might there be good pedagogical reasons for this approach?

Let's take grades.  So far, I have not mentioned them.  Grades could be assessed at the reading and commenting stage.  But why?  So that I would not have to read another round of the same papers? That is a compelling reason.  But it is not making use of the pedagogical potential of the writing assignment.  As I mentioned, the certificate projects are additional teaching and learning opportunities.  Because, while some people are able to make the leap and apply the concepts and use the tools that they have acquired--or even remember the information--most, in my experience, are not.  Why?  Because they are lost in their own minds, in their own obligations and job duties.  They sit through the classes.  They might pick up a thing or two.  But if, when they return to their desks, they do not use what they learned, they forget.  And so with students.  Particularly nontraditional students.

So let's make the first round a learning opportunity.  You submit.  I read.  I comment.  I make suggestions.  Corrections.  I am your boss.  This is what I want.  You comply, or you will not receive a good evaluation.  That is the bottom line.  But of course, you are expressing yourself, at least in part, so the liberal educator in me (liberal in the classical sense) will allow for that individual expression insofar as it represents a coherent part of the essay.  And then, you will show what you have learned.  And I will grade according to what I have seen and according to your final project.  I will assess your learning along with your paper.  You will move forward.  We will move forward together.  Ideally, you will receive your paper and your grade at a conference appointment, where we can discuss what else it might take for you to improve.  Outline goals.  Performance objectives.  Blending the workplace with the classroom.  Did you know that many human resources degrees are housed in education departments?

I've been working in a department under human resources for too long.  It may be that my ideas about teaching are becoming sanitized.  Certainly, I only have the leisure to think about this because I am *not* grading 75-150 papers at a time.  Undoubtedly.  But of the things that are wrong with teaching, I think the utter dread and resentment of grading is a big one.  Papers represent an opportunity to teach, and an opportunity to see into the minds of our students.  Everyone could stand to take them more seriously.  I also know that this model is better for those who are teaching 2-3 classes rather than 5-6.  But--isn't that true of every thorough, student-centered method?  Not the ones that are designed to take the pressure off the instructor under the guise of a decentered classroom.  You know the ones I mean.  And yet, I really am thinking about how I would like to do things.  I would make the workweek a little bit more like the 8-5 crowd, in order to get what I need to do done more efficiently.

Because you know what?  Right now, I would give just about anything to be sitting in an office grading 5 or 10 papers, preparing students for future successes and considering how their minds and their methods are developing in response to what I have set before them.  If I could fit that into my 8-5 day, and reflect at home on how I can improve the next day, or the next week, or the next semester... I would gladly be tied to an office 40 hours a week in service of my real vocation.