Opportunities for Dialogue

Thanks to the comment she posted on my blog, I discovered blogger Entropy's "Sphere of Influence," which raises a lot of good, Catholic questions. It is refreshing to see a blogger really engaging with issues of faith, including asking questions when questions need to be asked and seeking faithful answers. I am engaged at present with her questions for Traditionalists, on which post I have been embarrassingly outspoken. She asks and answers some good questions about Virginity in a slightly older post, and I have found any number of probing discussions by browsing around a bit.

In a more academic mode, I was able to engage with fellow grad-students & professors to give input about the standard syllabus for Freshman Composition--the bane of every incoming Freshman (who didn't test out) and the 2nd year grad students who have to teach it. My gripe--teaching a novel for one of the major papers when they haven't even learned what they need to about writing yet, and won't with the distraction of "Argument as Literature" or "Arguing about Literature." Introducing the novel to the course was part of a two-fold effort to engage the university with a community reading project and pacify grad students who wanted to be teaching literature. I would rather be teaching literature (except that it requires more prep work that I won't need with a new baby on the way and I'm finally fairly happy with my syllabus for the first time in 6 years of teaching). But pretending that a writing course can accommodate literature and all of its assorted teaching baggage--er, difficulties--strikes me as a little naive. Besides that the novels in question were not particularly compelling to me personally, and it's never fun to teach someone else's "pet issues." Sure, one involved literacy, but from the perspective of literacy-acquisition and racial injustice, which is not where I'm coming from at all, though it is interesting in its own right. So we discussed the issue of teaching a book, the particular writing assignments, and some general strategies for improving classroom interaction. All good.

After this meeting, there was a brainstorming session for the 4C's conference (College Composition and Communication), which will be in New Orleans next year and I need an easy-to-get-to conference on my cv. Being on home turf is always a good thing, especially since the family could come with me and I hate traveling alone (which would not be an option anyway since I will have a 4-month-old!). So we talked about possible panels and it looks like we will be organizing one around the people who are working with literacy theory. One person is doing literacy acquisition narratives, one is doing technology & literacy, and I am doing literacy as portrayed in literature. I was informed of an article that intersects somewhat with what I am doing--even down to the time period. Also, I was able to explain--in rather more detail than I expected, after being asked to elaborate--what I am writing about for the dissertation. This had the happy result of making me think about what I was doing. An hour or so later, in Cheddar's, we ran into a former professor of my husband's, who also asked for the dissertation-in-a-nutshell, and giving the quick & dirty account of one's research project is always a beneficial thing. So I find myself slightly more interested in thinking about work than usual--all in time to prepare for tomorrow's class. Oh well. That's how it works! But at least it will be a workshop-y class, which I advocated at the meeting today and which seem productive for my class this semester. Those classes have much less prep than the ones in which I really have to teach something.

Interesting that these on-campus meetings were possible because my son was home (he had a cold, but wouldn't have been going to school anyway). Otherwise, I would have missed the first meeting, which began at 3. I realize that I need a bit more of this talking-to-people about academic stuff. It's just a pain to drag myself to the meetings to interact with people. I need to work on that. Did you notice "sloth" as one of my major sins?