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The Teaching Front
We’re midway through the French-Indian War in my American History 120s, having blasted through Early Colonialism as rapidly as possible. There are important components which I will pick up later, namely triangular trade, mercantilism and the like when we approach the American Revolution. I didn’t waste any time on the Salem Witch Trials (I never do). On the other hand, I spent a significant amount of time laying down the foundation of slavery in America.
At our present pace, we should arrive at the first exam dates by the end of week five, start of week six. This is later than my peers, probably because I spend a lecture day or two talking about the nature of history in general. On the other hand, I’m further along on the timeline than many of them.
Not that it is a competition. Each teaches there own way. Fortunately for me, the majority of my peers recognize and respect this concept.
In American History 121 I’ve got a split between my two evening classes. One of them is about to fight the Spanish-American War after we spent time on the concept of Imperialism. Prior to that we used Andrew Carnegie as our focal point for the Second Industrial Revolution. And of course, we covered Reconstruction. In the other class we are just about to emerge from Reconstruction. Hopefully we’ll pick up speed over the next two weeks.
I’m building new exams for all classes this semester, generating new essay questions as we move along. I’ve been using the same essays for a couple of years now and it seems to be long past time to switch things up.
Once we clear the first exams I’ll proceed forward to the Pre-Revolutionary Era and Theodore Roosevelt respectively. I think I’ve got at least two to three good classes with the potential for a fourth if I can weed out the dead weight or get them to see the light. The first exam almost always serves as a wake up call for many of them. They’ll make a decision to double down or bail out based upon what happens in the next couple of weeks.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this period is that I provide ample warning for what is coming down the pike. It isn’t an ambush by any means, instead it is perhaps more akin to a carefully scripted training exercise. They are given metrics by which I will grade the exam in the form of commonly made mistakes. In many ways, it is another history lecture for the students, a history of their predecessors and how they tend to react to the first exams in my classes.
Sadly, they frequently ignore these warnings and advance to contact expecting to get through without too much trouble.
They are often sorely mistaken.
Lastly, I had a guest visit my classroom to see how I did business. She was there on the day we killed General Edward Braddock, a bastard in need of frequent killing if you ask me. Later when I talked with my guest, she said if she had more history instructors like me, she might have chosen a different discipline. She gave me high marks for getting my students to class on time, keeping their attention and moving forward at a brisk pace.
I’ve got to say, I always appreciate positive feedback concerning my teaching. Thanks!
The Writing Front
I was able to get fiction writing done on three separate instances this week. Next week, the plan is to increase that to four days a week, Monday through Friday, probably around the two pm time frame. That isn’t my strongest time creatively but it is open and the campus is relatively quiet.
I also transcribed some of the longhand material, tweaking and refining as I went. I’m pretty happy with the results so far.
The goal is to have a finished product ready by semester’s end. Perhaps I might sign up for the National Novel Writing Month competition. This is slated to become a novella sized project and I think the subject matter I’ll address warrants that much coverage.
It feels good to be back in the saddle again. This wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Woman I Love, Trinity, who got her vehicle back to operational status, freeing me from transport duties.
Thank you very much.
The Fitness Front
The transportation freedom mentioned above has given me the flexibility to focus on my efforts in the swimming pool. This week the goal was to complete 4000 yards by today. I fell short by a 1000 yards since I didn’t go today.
On the other hand, my weight is now down to 190.5 pounds, more than twenty pounds less than my January 2012 high of 212 pounds.
My energy levels are good on a relatively consistent basis. On the rare instance when I am late to class and I have to drop for push ups (I believe in paying for breaking my own syllabus rules, believe it or not) I can easily pump out more push ups than are actually required. In fact, I got applause in one class for pumping out twenty without too much effort.
Not bad, given that I had swam a thousand yards with a 25 push up warm up a mere thirty minutes earlier.
The only downside of the renewed fitness condition is that I often underestimate how much projection power I have.
I’ve become known as “The Loud One.”
Other Fronts
The new glasses came in to replace the pair I busted last week. Now all we need to do is just count the days down to the next two pay days on the 22nd and the 1st respectively. Those resources should, finally, after ten months of economic misery, lost sleep and bubbling anger, allow us to patch the last of the major holes in the budget. Barring anymore disasters, we can move forward with getting our fiscal house in order.
I continue to read Dario Cirello’s Aegean Dream, a memoir of the time Dario and his wife spent in Greece. It is strange to be reading this while I am taking Spanish. The commentary on language troubles matches my own efforts at trying to speak Spanish intelligently.
Finally, the new Kindle arrived to replaced the dead one. I’ll pick it up from the landlord’s office tomorrow before I head off to training with the Lifeguard Company I work for.
So it goes. Things are getting better by the day, barring an exception or two. May the upward climb continue.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
When I was a kid, I always thought the early decades of the 21st Century would feature the usual exotic gear of science fiction. Perhaps we’d have HAL 9000s without homicidal tendencies, teleport systems and the like.
Instead, when I walk into a classroom, here is what I have in the year 2011.
1. I have a computer console, perhaps as old as three years maybe more. The computer contained therein is at best, a slow, fickle device which runs about as reliably as my radio teletype rig did when I was in the Army.
2. I have a projection system which, unfortunately, is only as good as the computer it is hooked up to. It projects images either onto a “Smart Board,” or a screen.
3. In some classrooms, I have the aforementioned “Smart Board.” This device is designed to incorporate multimedia on a traditional wall type surface.
4. I have PowerPoint, which is one of the programs in the computer.
No holograms. No time machines. No smart boards which really are smart. No voice activated computer system which will instantaneously respond to my commands CORRECTLY the first time and every time after that.
5. Oh, I have the Internet.
As a published science fiction writer, you’d think I’d be the first to use all of this technology to maximum effect. I am the second youngest history adjunct we have, which means by virtue of my age, my presence on the net, and a dozen other factors, that I am most likely to embrace the tools in my classroom.
Do I?
No. In a word, I hate them.
Why?
1. The computer is slow, unresponsive and does not respond to intuitive moments when you have to improvise in a lecture in order to make a point. It also vectors you straight into an inflexible presentation mode.
2. The projector is only as good as the computer you have. If the computer is having a good day, then it works fine. If the computer is not having a good day or someone prior to you did something to it, you’ll have trouble. This chews up valuable class time which would be spent doing other things.
3. The smartboard isn’t that smart, is not responsive enough for my tastes and like the projector, is only as good as the computer it is attached to. After a semester of experimentation with the smartboard, I stopped using it.
4. PowerPoint.
My frustrations with PPT are nearly endless. When forced to sit through a PPT presentation, I find myself looking at the clock, wondering if the Presenter or Lecturer is simply going to read from the script. If they do so, I shut them out. Further, in my experience, students will compulsively and more to the point, mindlessly write down EVERY THING THEY SEE BECAUSE IF IT IS ON THE PPT IT MUST BE IMPORTANT!
This slows the class down even further while you wait for the slow writers to catch up.
5. The Internet?
We have campus wide wifi. Guess what the students do with it?
Surf facebook, look at porn and generally do nothing productive.
In other words, I have a room full of what are supposed to be shiny toys designed to help me teach my students. Instead, they are very much like the plagued M-16 which American soldiers and many others have suffered with for decades. Fickle, prone to failure and not terribly effective.
What I’d like is a classroom filled with intuitive technology which could respond instantaneously to my commands, something which is fluid and not limited to a mere linear sequential process. Here is my wish list.
1. A smart board that is essentially an oversided iPad. I could swipe the screen, write on it with a device, tap commands to activate videos, utilize a Skype style function to contact historians for impromptu conversations, link classrooms for learning across disciplines and the like.
Yes, our “smart board” is supposed to be capable of all of that. It is slow, fickle and too unresponsive for my taste.
2. A hologram of some type, something which could conjure three dimensional images of historical figures, give them a voice and allow them to move about the classroom. Even better yet would be a hologram which can interact with the students in scenario based education.
3. A gaming system which allows students to actually enter a historical world. Those who play video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire and a host of others know what I am talking about. A virtual world where students can be given assignments where they go in search of various, programmable research assignments. Part of the game would be to successfully interact with the inhabitants of a given time period, conduct interviews and gain further knowledge in that fashion.
This would give them exposure to material culture, technological culture and most important for many, social history in general. It would augment the standard traditional political historical narrative.
4. A computer system which is simple, robust and responsive.
What do I use since I don’t have any of the items on my wish list?
Oral tradition, also known as lecture. I use my dry erase board to draw concepts, stick figures and the like in order to illustrate concepts. I use my storytelling ability to try and conjure that hologram out of thin air, using the student’s own imagination to the best of our collective abilities.
In other words, I use what is essentially ancient, reliable technology to teach in a 21st Century classroom because the other gear is unreliable and interferes with my teaching style.
So it goes. Discuss.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Teaching Front: Pondering Points
I teach history, not math. We should get this off the deck immediately. My math skills are, to be honest, atrocious. So when I sat down to figure out how to build my first batch of tests four years ago, it seemed to me that the best solution was to build a 100 point test. There would be four such tests in a semester, which matched my own experiences as a student. Issuing the grade the student earned would be a simple matter. Deduct points based upon errors, mistakes and wrong answers, subtract from 100 and there you have it, a grade to issue. If they lost 3 points, they got a 97 percent which would be an A. If they lost 65 points, that would be a 45 percent, which would be an F.
The thing is this. Just what, exactly should something be worth?
I’m not the first person to wrestle with this and there are all sorts of philosophies on what assessment should be used for, how many points to issue, should it be high stakes or low stakes and so on and so forth. An instructor’s assessment methodology, or lack thereof, is probably one indicator of their overall teaching philosophy.
I started with first principles.
First, I always hated homework in high school. To me, it was not much more than paperwork which had to be mindlessly completely. When I did it, which was not always the case, I ground through it reluctantly and turned it in. As soon as it was turned in, I forgot about everything except what the item was worth. If I really hated the class, and I hated half of them in any given year, I probably forgot the point value as well.
One pleasant aspect of college is that in many classes, you do not have homework. This often comes as a culture shock to freshman students, who are used to grinding out the assignments. You still have to do the assigned work, such as reading and study guides, but in most traditional college classes in the social sciences, homework isn’t issued.
It is worth pointing out that once someone pulled the gun away from my head per homework, which were now called study guides and reading assignments, I popped through them pretty quickly. I also retained the information for much longer than I might have otherwise. Not issuing homework also cut down on a number of other issues, such as allocating time to grade the assignments and the fact that most students probably cheat on the homework assignments. My summer working as a lifeguard around a bunch of high school students served only to reinforce that latter notion.
That leaves me with tests, quizzes and essays.
My first year exams were modeled on those issued by Larry Cox for American History at Maple Woods Community College. They were multiple choice exams only, 100 points, each question is worth one point each. It was the type of test I took and I remembered happily blasting through them without any real effort, though I messed up the scantron on the very first test which gave me a fright. Fortunately, we fixed the error and I got a solid A on my first exam.
The problem? Students were having trouble finishing the test. This is something I still struggle with, most people read v-e-r-y . . . s-l-o-w-l-y. The more important the item, the slower they go. They more nervous they are, they go even slower still. If they are prone to test anxiety, more on that in a bit, they tend to freeze up completely.
Another problem is the fact that other students who put in a minimal amount of time memorizing bits of data simply regurgitated the data onto the test, earned an A, just like I did, and moved on without really learning much. Given that survey classes are supposed to be preparing the students for advancement to higher levels and remembering my own troubles in that transition, this didn’t sit easily with me.
A final problem is that I was advised to issue some portion of the test with a writing component. Over the semesters I experimented with short answers, which are maddening to grade and issue points to. Just how much should a short answer be worth? Five points or ten? Twenty or two? It also seemed to me that the short answer wasn’t much better than the multiple choice in terms of assessing their understanding of the material. It was just another version of the multiple choice only I had to suffer through their bad handwriting.
There is cheating on tests as well, I might add.
So I pulled a page from the Western Civ classes I took years ago. On those exams the Instructor used a fifty-five point essay question. There were three per exam, he would pick one at random. Then you’d write. It was a harder test, to be certain, but it did force you to memorize the facts, think critically about the question at hand, organize a response and economize your words plus your time in order to complete the exam before the end of class.
I generated my first essay based exams with a point value of fifty points and issued them to my classes with fear in my heart. There was a lot of nay saying about the average student’s ability to write an essay, some of it well founded I might add. I’d still have the problem of bad handwriting and poor organization to deal with.
But why fifty points? Here is my reasoning.
First, if the point value is too low, like say 25 points, then the student will wargame the exam and figure they can skimp on the effort. At best you’ll get what is basically a short answer paragraph of maybe three to eight sentences which fails to answer the question on any level.
Second, if the point value is too high, then the student worries too much about the essay question, focusing on it to the exclusion of the rest of the exam.
Third, if they blow the essay, that is over half of the exam. Fifty points out of a hundred is a nice, round number to work with. They can’t blow it off, but they can’t blow off the other part of the test either. If they at least put some effort into it, they can get a passing score.
How do I grade the essays? On that matter, it becomes rather subjective and it is often a point of contention.
For one thing, I actually READ each essay. Students frequently assume that what I will do is skim their essay, looking for key terms. I do skim the essays the first time just to see how long it is, how it is organized, what I am dealing with over all. Then I read them.
I look for the following things when reading.
1. Is the essay well organized? Does it have a beginning, a middle and an ending which makes sense? Did the student accurately lay down the historical sequence of events in order to build their answer properly?
Often a badly organized essay is very much akin to a three year old with a box of crayons. It is all over the place and when I talk about essays I actually take a marker and scribble a line that goes in loops all over the board. This graphic representation sinks in for many of them.
2. Did you indent your paragraphs?
Some students do not know how to indent for some reason. When I get their essay, it is a solid block of text which is virtually unreadable. I warn them in advance to indent their essays, tell them how to do it if they have a doubt (place your index finger on the page and start writing from there) and I tell them that if they have a new idea, it probably needs a new paragraph. After all, Thomas Jefferson probably doesn’t want to share his paragraph with Alexander Hamilton.
Failure to indent costs a student one point per each offense to a maximum of five points. Five points is enough to hammer the point through to them without actually failing them if they executed everything else properly.
3. Factual errors.
Telling me that George Washington was at the Battles of Saratoga (for the record, he wasn’t) constitutes a factual error. I can’t brush it off as an opinion or an argument. When a student makes a factual mistake it shows me that they have not mastered the basic details required by the question. Thus I deduct points, anywhere from one to five, depending on the severity of the error.
These errors can and do add up very quickly. I also think this separates the adults from the kids in that someone who is good at memorizing bits of data often lacks the practice and experience of putting the puzzle together. It also serves as a pretty good indicator of what is going on in their headspace.
The complaint, often leveled by students against this element of the grading is that they have no real way of knowing EXACTLY what to put on the test. This type of student is one who still thinks, in spite of everything I have taught them, that history is merely about memorization.
“If only I can memorize the RIGHT details, I can ace Mr. Murphy’s test,” they must say to themselves.
The funny thing is, I do tell them EXACTLY what they need to know. It is called lecture and part of what I am looking for is their ability to summarize their understanding effectively.
4. Lack of details.
This is perhaps the most maddening aside from poor organization. Here is an example.
These guys were mad about taxes so they started a revolution. They fought against those other guys, I can’t remember who they are. It was a long fight with a lot of dead people in it but when it was over, our country was born. I’m sure glad they fought for us because I wouldn’t have my freedom without them.
A student will often say, “This is right, isn’t it?”
Yes.
And no.
Yes, it is a description of something I cover in class. It is right, vaguely. It also lacks nearly every detail one would need in order to figure out exactly what the student was talking about. If the student were to give an informative speech on a lecture in my class using the above paragraph, they would probably fail the assignment. It lacks the standard who, what, where, when, how and why that one needs in order to flesh this out.
Lack of detail will cost a student one to five points per instance.
5. Insufficient length.
This usually goes hand in hand with the above. If I get a blank essay, I’ll issue zero points. If I get a paragraph like the one I mentioned in italics, I’ll be charitable and issue ten points for effort. If the student nails the multiple choice then they’ve got a 60 percent, which is just barely passing.
While disappointing in many respects, these are the easiest to grade. You put ten points on them and move on.
The essay questions themselves are challenging yet if you read them and answer every component of them, it is possible to build a framework from the question itself.
Here is a question from my Western Civ One class.
Describe the causes and motivations of the Peloponnesian War. Identify the major combatants of the war and provide details on the nature of this conflict. Furthermore, was the war inevitable? Did the major combatants want a war and could it have been avoided? Provide your opinion supported by sufficient historical evidence and reasoning.
Students often ask, “Why is this one single block of text?”
I tell them, “I want you to get into the habit of taking blocks of text like this and breaking them down into component parts. When you reach upper level courses, you’ll look back on this question and see it as pretty clear cut in what I’m looking for.”
During the same semester that I issued this question, I brought a 300 level essay question from Trinity’s classes in to read to my students. Even with a Master’s level education, it took me a lot of effort to pull apart exactly what that instructor was looking for. My question simply asks you to tell me what you know about the period in question, lay down the causes and motivations, and provide evidence for your opinion.
The evidence, in this case, was to be pulled from a survey of the historigraphic (a history of history) lecture which detailed what previous historians had said about the war. It was probably one of the most complex lectures I’d ever given a college level course and perhaps a bit too hard at the 100 level. On the other hand, my Western Civ students beat the living daylights out of the question in spite of the difficulty.
In an opinion based question like this one, opinion counts for ten points. If you give only an opinion not supported by knowledge of the facts, you’ll be lucky to get any points at all.
So, to rift off of something Terri Lowry once said, what are my objectives?
1. I want to impart to the student that the study of history is more than mere memorization. They must be able to think critically about the information in order to, at later stages of the game, have a defensible opinion based upon the evidence at hand.
2. I want the student to gain the ability to write a critical essay outside of the core composition courses in preparation for advancement to higher level college classes.
3. I want the student to develop the ability to summarize their argument effectively, balancing the need for time conservation in class against the need to provide as much detail as possible.
4. Finally, I want the student to actually REMEMBER something from my class for longer than sixteen weeks.
In this bit of pondering I’ve only covered the essay portion. I still issue a multiple choice component which is worth two points a piece for a subtotal of 50 points.
Why two points per question? Again, it gets down to time. I think, even though the essay is worth half of the exam, that it is the more important component of the exam. I have to balance that view against the fact that not all students are good essay writers and they have a limited amount of time to complete the exam. If I issued one point per question for a maximum of 50 questions, they would be back to lack of time, which would affect the quality of their essay.
I could simply make the exam a 75 point exam but then we’re back to the problem of a student worrying more about the essay than the multiple choice. I want to get them into the habit of taking both sections seriously.
I didn’t get to test anxiety on this run. Maybe I will later, but this particular essay is long enough already.
Oh, what would I give this entry if I were grading it?
To be honest, it does wander around a fair amount and it does lack detail in places. In other places, it is vague.
I’d give it an 80 percent. Barely a B.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Teaching Front
I sat down yesterday to figure out reading assignments from the new textbooks we were issued for this coming academic year. When reviewing the various subjects, an instructor of history is always faced with a dilemma.
You can teach your material in a straight forward, linear sequential process. Just move forward from the first chapter to the last, touching on each topic as you go, emphasizing some, summarizing others. This is pretty much how my survey history courses were taught to me and frankly, it didn’t bother me all that much. I was able to retain pieces of the puzzle, earlier bits of data, important clues, and draw them together into a more comprehensive narrative whole. I do this just as naturally as some math teachers do . . . well, whatever the hell it is that they do with their formulas.
The problem is that one faces the student who either doesn’t know how to put the narrative together in their head or is incapable of retaining the information. While some would simply say, “Write them off, you can’t save them all,” that has always bothered me. Some folks simply lose the puzzle pieces you give them over the course of a semester, or they are distracted by their other courses, or life in general for that matter.
I also have to admit, that as a writer of fiction, the standard strategy never seemed very satisfying to me. Overly simplistic, expecting too little of even our best students, while losing many to sheer boredom.
The other strategy, one I cobbled together for my second teaching eval four years ago, was to give a comprehensive lecture on the trouble between the United States of America and the Empire of Japan. It suffered from being a bit too comprehensive for a 100 level course, as many of my first year lectures did. However, it did accomplish a number of things.
For the first time, the light popped on for many of my students. They would look at the textbook and go, “The text doesn’t say anything about any of that, Mister Murphy. Why?”
I actually saw the light of true comprehension, even among students who didn’t care for or actively disliked history. I gave them all of the pieces of the puzzle at once, more or less sorted out if not completely assembled for them.
In other words, I prefer the comprehensive method where you go back into the past, perhaps even before the course actually started chronologically, to explain how the events came to be.
The only problem? It is time consuming and it does draw attention away from other topics. In other words, you simply can’t do this with every topic of importance in the course.
This leads to the next problem.
What do you emphasize and what do you summarize? As a former grad school instructor told me, “You cover what you can.” True, but you’ll be damned by some for political prejudice for not covering certain topics. That Instructor is very much a social historian, it is his strength. Social history, however, is not a strength of mine in spite of my indoctrination in that subfield of history.
I have to admit that I prefer the more traditional political history over the social historical narrative. It is very hard, even for me, to draw any understanding from social history when it is taught in near isolation from political events even though they may well have generated those events. At best, comprehensive social history should be saved for the three hundred level on up, after students have a solid core of political history built into their understanding.
Thus I tend to emphasize political events, particularly with regard to foreign policy, economics to a lesser degree, and finally technological advancement. Given that we have spent the last decade locked in constant warfare, I find the notion of minimizing America’s foreign policy history unpalatable. It seems to me that at the very least, students should have a rudimentary understanding of how this country became a superpower.
In any case, I’m left with a decision on what to focus on based upon my strengths as an historian, my understanding of the material, and my professional beliefs as to what should receive proper emphasis.
So it goes.
The Fitness Front
I weighed in today at the LRC at 196 pounds, down from a high of 212 pounds back last January. I’m close to my old weight back in the Fall of 2009. On the other hand, I’m slimmer, more developed in terms of back and triceps muscles and my endurance in the lap lanes is far superior to what it was even a year ago.
I celebrated by swimming five hundred meters in the LRC swimming pool, 100 meters at a time. Compared to last spring, swimming the 25 meter length was easy compared to the competition pool at my summer job.
It felt good. Hopefully over the next nine months, I’ll improve upon the weight situation and my swimming ability.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
It has been a busy week for yours truly. So busy that my fitness program, which had been running pretty consistent since the start of the new year, got a bit derailed as I dealt with one issue or another.
Let’s get to it.
The Teaching Front
We’re advancing to our first exam, which is far later than normal due to the snow days we’ve had. I’m behind in all of my classes as well, which is yet another struggle. Further, due to the disruptions, it has been difficult to build up momentum and bond with the students. As a result, things are not working quite as smoothly as I’d like. Fortunately, I have no real disciplinary issues on the table.
On the other hand, I see a lot of my students using their textbook and their study guide during the lecture to hunt down terms. On the surface this might seem like a good thing, right? At least they are paying attention to something.
Well, actually, it is a bad thing. It is a sign of a time crunched student, or worse, a bored student, who is attempting to work through the study guide while I lecture. More often than not students believe that the lecture material is not important for the test. I often get students who ask how much of what I lecture on is in the textbook.
Less than you’d think. The lectures are often specifically designed to go deeper into the topics at hand or they are designed to operate hand in glove with the textbook.
So an example would be the lecture on the Pre-Revolutionary Era of American History. The traditional way of teaching this is to start with the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, the This Act and the That Act and rest assured that is exactly how it sounds to the student. They are merely memorizing bits of info for regurgitation and that is the last thing you want them to do. Memorization is just an early step towards true understanding.
Rather than lecture on those acts, I make the student responsible for reading the textbook’s coverage of those acts. What I do instead is lay out the case for why the Colonials believed that their only recourse was to declare independence from Great Britain. I lay down the grievances and I fill in the background for the Colonial’s historical understanding and perception of events.
How does that work out? Well, I’m two semesters into using that method and if you are a student who does what I told you to do, take notes on the lecture, tie it to your reading and form a synthesis of the two, then they do fine.
Test results aren’t much different between one strategy of coverage or the other, I might add.
In any event, they are doing their homework while I lecture. I think I’m going to put that on the Why Did I Fail The Test? section of my syllabus for next semester.
The Student Front
I’ve not had a chance to update either the Pondering Tree or Playing with Genesis.
We’ve moved into the actual writing of the novel. The group I am in wrote a combined first chapter this last week.
We’re in a computer lab and to be honest, I am growing to believe that this was not the best choice for the class. It is hard to get into an effective group in order to get any work done. The computers serve as a frequent distraction. Given that I was using my laptop on Tuesday, even I am guilty of this, though I had a reason (which is not the same as an excuse) for having that computer out. If nothing else, the clickety-click-click-click of the keys on my laptop are relatively quiet.
In fact, in terms of technology in the classroom, I think it ought to be banned. No videos, no slides, no powerpoints, none of it. Just a board to write on and comfortable chairs for the students to sit in with a large desk to spread out their things. On C-Span this morning (and what a wonderful discovery that is, a place where people discuss without drama or shouting or Jerry Springer like behavior) an education pundit was talking about a high tech public school on the East Coast which cost a pretty penny to equip with the latest and greatest in technology.
The performance at that school? In the toilet. Students surf the net, IM each other or spend their time trying to get the tech to work in the first place.
Banish to the Computer Science Department and leave it there.
I’ll provide a proper update to Playing with Genesis that covers the actual course material and progress later this weekend.
Research Project Number – 05
The Client was on deadline this week, which was something of a surprise to me. I wasn’t aware of the deadline. No matter. I sat down with the backlog I could most effectively contribute to and worked over the material. By deadline time, I had most of the storyline components covered. There are a few lingering errors in the manuscript but I will catch them later.
It is going to be a pretty big novel, folks. I’m looking forward to seeing how the trilogy ends.
The Writing Front
In the Early Morning Rain by Berry Henderson and myself is currently out to market. We haven’t heard anything back yet so we’re hopeful. It is a new market open to e-subs so I’ll be looking over my inventory to see what can be polished up and put into the wind. Many of the valuable things I have learned in World Building will be helpful in that respect.
On the novel front I was able to drag out the manuscript for the first time in a couple of weeks to give it a going over. What I have right now are a bunch of cobbled together, pasted together scenes which are loosely linked together. In looking over the manuscript I think some major work is needed to better define the roles of the various characters.
There is also one glaring problem, the same one I noticed with my previous novel effort, Convergence Point.
When I have the space to spread out and more specifically, work on a military topic, I tend to let the action and strategy dominate the narrative. It is a natural strength of mine as a storyteller and an historian. Unfortunately, without significant character depth and development, no one is going to care about that action. It will be nothing more than a series of cardboard targets getting cut down on the battlefield.
So that part of it needs significant work. It is the sort of thing I can probably hammer out in a week of concentrated effort.
As for the World Building in the novel, I think some refinement of various structures and institutions are necessary. I definitely want to redefine the family structure of this society based upon what I have learned in Melissa Eaton’s Cultural Anthropology side of the course.
If things go according to plan, I’ll use my time during Spring Break in tandem with Trinity’s Spring Break (which is at the end of the month) to get the project ready for submission to market.
Other Fronts
Over the next few days the Great Summer Job Hunt will commence. Now that I am lifeguard qualified I should be able to, hopefully, get a decent job at around 25 to 30 hours a week maximum. Even more ideally, it will be a posting to an outdoor pool.
Trinity is making plans to travel to California to see her eldest son and wife for a week during her Spring Break. I should be able to polish up the novel while she is out there. I’ve got to say that I am glad to see that fences have been mended with that particular component of her family.
Lastly, March 10th is my father’s birthday. He’ll be sixty-nine years old if my math is correct. No one thought he’d get this far given that he has prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, stage three lung cancer and a heart muscle that more closely resembles a chunk of hamburger than a heart.
I chalk it up to sheer cussed stubborness myself.
Trinity and I are going to see about getting some barbecue for tomorrow night so we can celebrate a bit early. Both of us will be tied up during the week with our respective college obligations.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
American History II
Back in the Winter Semester of 1994 I took American History II with Larry Cox at Maple Woods Community College. I had taken him during my first semester for American History I and unlike many of my students, I truly enjoyed the experience. It was a lecture based course with weekly quizzes, reading assignments and four exams. It was not difficult to earn an A during the Fall 1993 Semester and it was not difficult to earn an A during the Winter Semester either.
In fact, I earned an A on every class I took at Maple Woods in the History Department, which pretty much set my course for my current career.
Years later, in the Fall Semester of 2007 I’d finally get a chance to teach a college level history course. In addition to brushing up on my recent American History, I scoured my brain for memories of that class with Larry Cox and modeled my course accordingly. For my assessment I decided to go with multiple choice exams which were balanced out by true false and short answer. This seemed reasonable enough to me. I also decided to follow the example of another peer who manually graded their exams.
Today? I use a much different test. With each passing semester I utilize more writing for the exams based on the realization that it was not terribly challenging or useful for a student to memorize bits of data only to forget them later. Further, I wasn’t convinced that they were learning anything by using a multiple choice exam. Granted, the exams have their appeal in that you can run them through a scantron reader, which makes grading easy.
Assessment: Writing
So, why writing? I have to admit, I was leery about transitioning over to writing at first. English proficiency isn’t necessarily a requirement for taking American History. We often receive students who struggle to read and write at a functional level. Some might argue that it is patently unfair to expect more of them even though it is a 100 level college course. There is also the fact that if I assign essays for my exams, I have to devote more time to preparing them for that portion of the exam which in turn means I am not concentrating on the material.
Yet I’ve grown to accept that a writing element should be included in the exam. I typically use an essay which is worth anywhere from 50 to 60 points depending on which semester the course is offered. The students receive the essay questions ahead of time on their study guides, usually three questions per exam.
The best strategy for doing well on my essays is to keep decent lecture notes. It helps if a student breaks the essay question down into the component parts as a note taking guide. As they move through the lecture notes and the reading assignment, a good student should be able to figure out which components go where in the question.
In other words, I am asking them to reconstruct the narrative. To me, this seems more challenging than merely expecting them to memorize that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. They have to remember who, what, where, when, how and why. They have to remember the sequence of events and finally, in many cases, they have to remember the motivations and causes of various events in history. They get a bit of help in that I provide a batch of terms to know for each section of the quarter on the study guide.
This, I tell them, is their meat and potatoes for the essay.
Finally, I advise them to write an outline of each essay question as a study method. They are not allowed to use this outline during the exam, which many consider to be harsh. Frankly, using the outline is a little too much like cheating to me.
What are the results? For students who want to learn, I continue to hear nothing but positive feedback on the method. It pushes them to write more. It pushes them to reason with the material far more actively than they would if they simply memorized the data and regurgitated it back onto the exam. It requires higher order thinking to figure out what came before what, who or what motivated a person or nation to take a course of action, and figure out what the consequences were.
Early in the semester we focus mainly on narrative based questions. As the semester progresses I try to transition to questions which require an opinion from the student. I prefer to do this later because many students figured out in previous classes, both high school and college, that a well written opinion which is deficient in fact based evidence was sufficient to get a passing grade. I want to break them of that habit by forcing them to build up their evidence based reasoning first before asking them for an opinion.
Some students do complain about the writing load.
“I didn’t sign up for an English class.”
To which I normally respond that any good college course should feature a heavy writing requirement. Further, writing forces you to think. It is good for you, whether you realize it or not.
“I can never figure out EXACTLY what it is that you want me to know.”
In my more jaded and cynical moments I feel that these are students who try to get through the course while learning as little as possible. If I gave a multiple choice exam worth 100 points, they’d be happy with that. Just memorize that data points, pump them back onto the exam and move on. There is the issue of data selection or filtration, trying to figure out what is a higher priority bit of data from a lower bit. Some students, if you gave them all the time in the world, would respond to the essay questions by regurgitating the lecture notes word for word.
Which is impossible, I might add. The time limitation makes it impossible. A student has anywhere from fifty minutes to seventy-five minutes to complete the essay. They have to make a choice about what is more important in a cloud of data where, to some, everything seems important.
The questions I issue are designed to provide them with some guidance on what I am looking for.
The rest of the exam used to be devoted to multiple choice questions. This semester I am moving away from that toward short term identification. That increases my grading load but I think this will help some students who see a name like Alexander Hamilton and wonder just what, exactly, is important about him. It may also help them put together part of their essay question in a rough draft form on the short identification before moving onto the main event.
Writing, Stephen King once wrote, is the closest thing we have to mind reading. I also think it is the best method of student assessment available in an environment where interviewing the individual students about their knowledge content is not a viable option.
Content
Now, the other issue is just what, exactly, should one cover. Historians and politicians spend a lot of time debating what should be covered in a college history course. We are fortunate in that we are allowed to make up our own mind what is important. Further, just as my students are forced to make choices about what to emphasize in their essays, the time constraints of the semester force me to make choices about what I will emphasize.
The 100 level courses I took focused on what used to be a standard political historical narrative of leaders who made decisions and how those decisions shaped society. The lectures often focused on foreign policy, domestic policy, the advance of technology, and to a limited degree, warfare. The evolution of various political philosophies and shifting social attitudes were also covered in the lectures.
As I marched on into 200 to 400 level history courses, the instruction shifted radically, as did the assessment methods. The emphasis moved toward a heavy emphasis in social history, which is basically the history of the everyday person in a given time period.
To be perfectly honest, and I’m bucking the trend here, I am not sure I understand the value of social history. The theory is that students will find resonance in the narrative if they read about people like themselves in a given historical time period. Another aspect of social history deemphasizes the focus on leaders with the notion that people of the society pretty much shape the decisions any given leader will make.
To sum it up, social history is history with “the people” put back into the narrative.
I take issue with this because I do not think one can readily compare the existence of a Roman slave during the Fall of the Roman Republic with a Dustbowl Farmer trying to get to California during the Great Depression. The Marxist Historian would tell you that both are lower class in the society and they would be correct. They would also be correct in telling you that an apple and an orange both belong in the fruit section of your supermarket.
There was also a studied deemphasis (contempt is probably more accurate) toward covering the topic of warfare. My instructors covered this point by stating, “The wars aren’t terribly important.” There is also a prevalent attitude that it is better to teach peace rather than war. Thus if I do not focus on it and the rest of my peers avoid it as well, we which reach a point where war fades away from the society.
Perhaps an oversimplification but I think it is an accurate assessment.
Finally, there was an attitude, fueled in part by James Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me whereby we pull down various leaders and figures in American History and replace them with figures who have been ignored. He has a valid point when he discusses the concept of “heroification” in American History. Consider that for quite some time it was inappropriate to discuss the historical record concerning Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slaves. I freely discuss the Sally Hemmings controversy when I get to Jefferson partly because I think students should understand that historical figures were often a collection of contradictory attitudes and behaviors. This provides some depth to figures who might otherwise come off as paragons of virtue, indistinct from the other paragons of virtue.
My only criticism of the concept of heroification is that the profession seems hellbent on removing someone like Jefferson and replacing him with another paragon of virtue.
Consider Martin Luther King Junior, leader of the American Civil Rights movement. He is considered a hero in the eyes of many and rightfully so. When I lecture, do I discuss the FBI records which detail his extramarital affairs?
There are some who would say I am attacking Martin Luther King Junior by doing so, seeking to undermine his important contributions to our society.
I’ll leave that question unanswered for now.
So, what do I focus on?
To be honest, I tend to focus on the standard political historical narrative. While focusing on this narrative I try to breathe life into a sampling of historical figures who I believe can serve as focal points for a number of different issues during a given period of history. The course is currently weighted toward foreign affairs partly because I feel that students simply do not understand is going on in American Foreign Policy. I try to outline the rise of American Power and how we found ourselves at the top of the international hierarchy at the end of World War II. I also try to outline the political philosophies which drive our foreign policy.
And yes, I spend time on the wars. Some students complain that I glorify the wars, which isn’t quite accurate. I preface the lectures on warfare by covering the very real personal cost my own family has paid for these wars. It is my hope, when I cover such topics, that they will come away with a greater depth of understanding with regard to human conflict.
“War is bad,” isn’t enough if you ask me. We all know it is bad just as most smokers know that smoking is bad. It is right there on the package from the Surgeon General yet they do it anyway, just as humans continue to use war as a means of resolving their differences. When I cover warfare I try to impart to them the cost of war and why the wars happens anyway.
Maybe, I tell them, you’ll be able to stop the next one if the reasons for going to war do not add up. You’ll be able to come to your own conclusion based on your education, not on some talking points someone hammered into your head.
I also try to cover the evolution of rights in American History II as they spread from white male voters to the rest of the citizenry with an emphasis on gender and race based discrimination. This topic alone is worthy of a stand alone course and I do not claim to cover it with the full justice it deserves. In general I tend to conclude that aspect of the course with an optimistic note that the society is an experiment in progress and we tend to expand the recognition of rights overtime as opposed to curtailing them.
Social history? I do not spend much time on it. At the 100 level, frankly, I can’t see where any of it would apply. The students often come to me with a very deficient baseline of information, one I have to spend a lot of time filling in. It seems to me that if it is going to be taught at all that it should be relegated to higher level courses.
To be honest, I wish my instructors had spent more time on historiography with concentrated readings assigned from notable historians in any given field. That would have been far more valuable to me than learning about the lives of lower class people in any given moment of history.
To conclude, I never feel like I have enough time to get to everything. Some students leave the class a bit disgruntled that their favorite topic wasn’t covered. They seem to have a fixation on the history of crime in this country, one which I find rather mind numbing and dull.
I think in a future entry I’ll discuss why I focus on specific people as focal points in the historical narrative.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The following is a document which I have attached to my syllabi for nearly three years now. It started off as a short list of six points. It has now, as you can see below, grown to nine points.
Enjoy.
American History
Updated: Tuesday, 01-18-2011
Why did I fail the Test?
In order to expedite the learning process and facilitate troubleshooting the potential reasons why students perform poorly on their exams, I have provided this list of primary factors which result in poor performance. This is not all inclusive, but it does cover the majority of poor test score issues.
1. Talking in class: Talking in class is perhaps the Number One pet peeve of the Instructor. Talking during the lecture not only takes your attention off of the material, it distracts everyone around the offending student. It is also THE PRIMARY COMPLAINT of your fellow students. Frequent offenders will be removed from the classroom without debate or discussion.
2. Someone next to you was talking: If you are distracted by a fellow student during the lecture then there is a pretty good chance that you missed something important. It is incumbent upon you to take action to correct this. It is within your right as a student to ask that your peer remain silent during the lecture. If they are unwilling to remain silent, report the behavior to the Instructor for further corrective action.
3. Sleeping in class: If the student is sleeping, the student is neither listening nor taking notes. A frequent excuse is that the course is boring. Part of education is learning to adapt and overcome which includes staying awake, whether you want to or not.
4. Texting in class: If the student is texting the latest non course related social gossip, they are not taking notes. Moreover, they probably aren’t paying attention either. Texting students are obvious to everyone around them to include the Instructor (who sees you hiding the phone under the desk, in your pocket, on your lap, etc). Aside from the fact that the syllabus states texting is forbidden in the first place, it is usually a self eliminating problem. Texting students perform poorly.
5. Poor attendance: If the student is not in class, they are not there to listen, take notes and learn. Reading the textbook alone and cribbing off of the notes of your peers will not suffice.
6. Late to Class: It goes without saying that if you are late to class, you probably missed something important. Tardy students invariably disrupt the class by asking their fellow student what they missed, impeding the learning process even further. Show up on time. It is that simple.
7. Failure to take notes: Learning does not occur by osmosis. The student must be an active participant and in a lecture based class that means taking good notes. Simply listening to the lecture will not work for the majority of the students in this class.
8. Failure to read the textbook: The textbook and the reading assignments are provided as a means of giving the student additional context and the opportunity to THINK about what they have learned. Learning is not just the mere memorization of facts. Learning is about understanding, in the case of history, why things may have happened the way they did and how they pertain to present day events.
9. Listening to your iPod during the lecture: The iPod or similar device is forbidden in any case. If you are listening to it, you aren’t listening to the lecture and you will fail your test.
There are other reasons but if you find that you have one or more of the following symptoms during the course of the semester, this might explain poor test performance. It is up to the student to be proactive and correct the problem.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Sorry I’ve been away from the Tree for so long. There were tests to grade and record, students to see, bills to pay since April Fool’s was payday (irony be thy name), and sunny weather to enjoy with the Woman I Love. Needless to say, Reality has kept yours truly busy.
The April Fitness Plan
I’ve got until April 27th to get ready for Lifeguard Training. The good news is that I can push myself to reach 300 meters of swimming without break. The bad news is that it takes a great deal of effort and it only features the front crawl. I need to master the breast stroke and the turn required to effectively use the breast stroke. This has to be done in twenty days or less.
I ran into a bit of a snag with my revised swimming plan. Across from the Pod is North Kansas City Community Center (it is across the street from the burning Quik Trip in Birmingham’s Without Warning for those wondering). I went across the street to knock out the first of my morning swim sessions only to find a large swim team contingent there. Granted, they left me to my own lane but I found it oft putting. It prompted me to rethink my fitness plan.
Here it is.
Monday-Wednesday-Fridays
0530 hours: NKC-CC, Strength Training
I’m going to make a change to my strength training workout. I had been working on sheer muscle mass mainly as a way to burn off more calories. The more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn. I also like the additional mass because it gives me a bit of an edge in the classroom (the mass adds just a bit to my command authority).
Instead, I’m going to aim for endurance instead. I’ll drop the level of weight I am using just a notch, say my bench press down to 165 lbs at 10 reps rather than 185 at 6 reps. I have a lot of raw power at my disposal but not as much endurance as I’d like.
And it is probably worth pointing out that the swimming is increasing my overall strength anyway. Yesterday when I worked on the Lat Flex machine for the first time in two months (the Campus Rec Center doesn’t have one I like) I noticed that I was pulling far more weight than I had in the past, up to 255 pounds. So I can probably modify my workout just a notch.
0930 hours: Campus Rec Center, Swim Training
The Campus Rec Center pool is pretty quiet at this time with lots of open lanes. For this week I am going to work at building up my form, breathing and endurance.
M: 100 meters x 5 for 500 meters.
W: 100 meters x 6 for 600 meters.
F: 200 meters x 3 for 600 meters.
1900 hours: Northtown Community Center, Additional Swim Training
I notice that I recover pretty fast between sets which leads me to believe I can probably push myself a bit more. In the evening I’ll hit the pool again. Each night with the exception of Monday night (I teach so I can’t swim) I’ll try to reach the 300 meters mark consistently.
Tuesday-Thursdays
I have a body building class on campus at 1230 hours. I think I need to get down to the campus rec center earlier rather than hanging around the adjunct farm eating junk food and generally goofing off. I also need to work in a cardio element into my plan.
1130 hours: Strength and Cardio Training
It is easier to work back at Northtown so I’ll work chest at the Campus Rec Center.
I will also work in a 20 minute session on the elliptical trainer. This will probably happen during the actual class as my fellow students tie up most of the weights.
If I feel like it, I may hit the pool for some swimming. I think I’ll restrict myself to 100 meter sets.
Saturday and Sunday
With the Northtown Community Center back on line, I can work in some weekend workouts. These will probably be either easy going days or make up days. Usually Wednesday ends up being my paperwork catch up day so I suspect I’ll be running with a variation of the MWF workout.
Consumption
I need to tweak my eating habits. One probably is that fresh fruit is a bit thin on the ground. The apples around here have been pretty crappy and it is still just a notch early for strawberries. I also need to watch the binging.
So it goes. My goal is still the same. Qualify for lifeguard training. Secondary goals include fat loss and increased muscle mass.
The Teaching Front
I handed exams back this week in three of my four classes. It was a mixed bag. Overall there were marginal improvements in all three day classes. The marginal improvement can be traced to some basic facts.
1. Some students have dropped or simply didn’t take the test.
2. Some students took my advice and prepared.
The additional prep work, outlines and note cards, helped most of my students who used them. However there is always a couple of people for whom these tactics do not work. I don’t quite know why this is and it bothers me to hand out a solution to a problem and see it fail for a few students. I don’t think there is any one solution to the problem. Some students aren’t ready for college. Some students aren’t quite getting what I am trying to teach them. Some students have issues outside of the classroom which are beyond my control. Some students simply do not have time.
A few students, I think many students, approach the work the wrong way. They do the prep to get it done, much the same way a fast food cook or an assembly worker does work. Do Task A, go to Task B, connect to Task C, complete task order, set aside and move to next task order. They do it much the same way I used to fill out my DA-2404s when we were on maintenance in the motor pool. You find the same problems with the vehicle that the Army hasn’t fixed, you list them, turn it in, call it good, go get a soda.
They see the material as little bits of data to be memorized. This is not a new observation, James Loewen makes this point in his Lies my Teacher Told Me book (probably one of the only decent points he makes, overall I find the book questionable). So they memorize a little bit of data, hope they see something that matches it on the test, throw it against the wall and hope it sticks. And the more they dislike a given topic, the more likely a student is going to respond in this fashion.
Lately I’ve taken to telling my classes these things.
1. History is not about memorizing useless bits of data. If that were the case then I tell you that I can get a classroom full of parrots to earn As on the test if you give me enough time and crackers to train them.
2. History is about motivations, causes and consequences. A student needs at least that level of comprehension if they are going to understand what is going on. This is different from “intellectual history” which is what some say I should be teaching. But I can’t have a discussion about trends and historiography if they don’t have the slightest idea of the basic facts.
3. 99% of History is about this question, “Who got screwed and why?”
The response I sometimes get is this.
1. I just need my history credit.
2. Just tell me what you want me to put on the essay.
3. I am never going to use this information, why am I in this class anyway? It has no purpose.
I have some sympathy with the later one. The question which drives so many people, my father is a classic case in point is, “Will this put food on the table, pay the bills, make me happier?”
In the immediate sense? No, it won’t. For me it is only lately that my skills as a historian has helped pay the bills, put food on the table and make me happier. But even before I started teaching, my skills as a historian had use in my life. As a security officer it helped me to write a more effective report, which is a first draft of history. Most of my students are moving on to Vocational training in fields where I know they will be writing reports. Mechanics, techs, medical, law enforcement, teaching, so on and so forth, they’ll be expected to write reports, fill out forms, diagnose problems. The skills taught in an history class helps with that, even if they can’t see that we are trying to teach them a way of thinking.
For others there is only ONE right answer. The subjective nature of history drives some black and white thinkers nuts and generates the “Just tell me what you want” statement. Some items are certainly locked in stone, such as dates, who signed what document and why, where places are, where events took place, and who was there.
No one except a nutjob is going to argue that the Declaration of Independence doesn’t exist. It does. We have sufficient documentation to tell us when it was written, by who, how it was revised and why, and the reason for the creation of such a document. Those are facts.
What is subjective is the effects the document had on follow on events or what the people who helped write the document were thinking at the time. If a student thinks there is just one right answer to any question, then this will drive them mad. It will be worse if they are simply trying to get the work done and out of the way.
Anyway, these are the issues I face in the classroom on a general level. Next time I might ponder some about student attitudes toward the essay questions I issue with each exam.
Payday Activities
Well, the first of the month is payday from the teaching gig so it was off to pay bills and whatnot. We’ve restocked the larder, laid in enough to hopefully get us through the month. Perishables are a bit of a problem but we’ll do what we can.
I’ve been making Trinity’s car payment for the last few months. I’m a bit worried about what will happen once summer arrives. There will be no money for the car then. Hopefully we’ll both pick up part time jobs and maybe her summer student financial aid will help with that. Still, I’m looking forward to having the car paid off. Once we get that cleared, we can see about upgrades to the office and living room areas.
And I can start restocking my personal library.
Speaking of books, lately I’ve been looking for books on economic history. I found a couple of good surveys of US Economic History, one set in the Gilded Age, the other a comprehensive examination form 1600 to about the mid 1980s (when the book was published). I was driven down this road for a couple of reasons. One is that I would like to reach a point where I could discuss economic history more effectively in the classroom. The other is tied to Research Project Number – 05, which I think is as much about economic power as it is about military and political power. When I read these books, I’ll post reviews on them.
Niall Ferguson also has what looks like a pretty good book called The Ascent of Money. I’m going to try and snag a copy of that.
Hopefully at some point over the summer I can sit down with a revised understanding of economic history and rebuild my lectures for both American History classes.
Clash of the Titans
I struggled mightily to get out of seeing this movie but Trinity wanted to see it. So off we went, yours truly not very happy about it but I did my best to suck it up.
The film sucks ass. No character development, no reason to give a shit about what happens, it is just awful. Only Liam Neeson’s little moments make it bearable and then just barely so.
That said, there is this.
It is better than the original.
But then, how could it not be?
Other Stuff
Yesterday was a mad day of spring cleaning at the Pod. We scrubbed the shit out of that place and it needed it.
And finally, we’ve been invited out to Sunset Bed and Breakfast for Easter Sunday doings so I’ll be dropping back off the net.
Tomorrow will be another day.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Front: Reborn for Glory
WC: 1479
Well, the good news is that I figured out what this story is about. I’m pretty happy with that, though I wonder if it doesn’t use a well worn cliche. We’ll see. In any case, I got some writing done.
I don’t know if this story will need 5,000 words to tell it. I think I can get the story cleared off the decks in less than 3000.
The E-Light Reader Corps
I’m giving some thought to reforming the E-Light Reader Corps. This was a group of people who helped out with various stories by reading them and telling me what worked, what didn’t. I’ve already got one person on board for this (I think).
In any case, I’m considering expanding this group. I want more than just fellow writers. I’d like readers/fans to participate. I also want to keep the numbers small, maybe no more than six people at first.
Interested parties can e-mail me at tearingdowntuesday(at no spam)yahooDOTcoDOTuk or leave a comment here.
If you are a fellow writer I will try my best to give a crit for every crit I get. I’ve been a lot better about this lately.
The Teaching Front
My evening class has their test tonight. I think I’ll test them, show a bit of John Adams and let them go. Next week we’ll start on the Revolution. Hopefully they’ll do better than my morning students. While they are testing, I’ll move forward with grading.
One new rule I imposed on myself is that I no longer take the tests home with me. I grade them there on campus or while I am giving another test. Grading is such a frustrating experience because frankly, these students should be doing better than they are. And every student I have met who moves onto the four year schools constantly report the same thing.
“It is awfully fucking hard here at the four year level.”
I figure the harder I can make my class, the better I can prepare those who are moving on and perhaps convince others that it won’t be a cake walk. Weeding them out is not my personal goal per se, I don’t see myself as a gatekeeper unlike some in the field, but if I can show them that it isn’t a joke and they move onto something else, then that can’t hurt.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy, BSG-71
Location: Combat Information Center
Mission: Prepping for the Semester’s First Engagement
The Teaching Front
Today we covered more of the Pre-Revolutionary Era which runs from 1763 to 1775. It is, to be certain, a hash of mythology, entangled narratives and a lot of confusing policy wonk stuff.
On the upside, most students have had these lines hammered into their heads.
“No Taxation without Representation.” That is good. But ask them what that means?
“I don’t know.”
So you have to explain the British Parliamentary System. You also, while you are at it, probably better get into the English Civil War (briefly, a little dab will do ya). You might want to mention that the mantra, “No taxation without representation” was not an original notion. Parliamentarians argued about that back in the 1600s.
Then after you line all of that out, you have to explain to them that the Colonials do not have representatives in Parliament. If you want to confuse them, tell them it wouldn’t have done any good to have them there anyway due to the Tyranny of Distance and the time lag in communications.
Next, you have to hammer home the taxes. You should have spent some time explaining the fact that the colonies were allowed to run their own affairs, more or less, up to the 1750s. They are not happy with meddlers and micromanagers. They definitely are not happy with getting the bill for the French-Indian War or making installment payments for the greatly expanded British Empire.
From there you go from taxes and representation to enforcement. That leads to the Vice Admiralty Courts and British efforts to pull away two basic liberties provided for by the common law.
Right to a jury trial and that one is innocent until proven guilty.
So it goes.
Ideally what should happen, if they have been paying attention (and I’m getting better responsiveness out of some classes, probably because they saw the rant in the previous entry) is that they could use the Declaration of Independence as a study guide.
Right now it feels mushy. Sometimes I think what I should do is throw out the current lecture and build a new one based entirely on the Declaration of Independence. Then I can simply go down the list that Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams hammered out to make their case in 1775. Here is the various tax acts. There is the effort to block the right to assembly. Over here is that bit about the King’s agents and so on.
In fact, the longer I think on it, the more I like that idea. Hell, it can’t hurt.
Sadly, I won’t be able to truly test it out until the next semester.
We are about to hit the start of the Revolutionary War. They’ll test next Thursday and then we’ll see what we get.
The Fitness Front
Made it to the gym twice this week. If I can get a session in tomorrow and Saturday after class then that will make four.
The Writing Front
I posted elements of my three short story challenge projects at Terri Lowry’s Creative Writing class. They are up a bit early and I suspect it will be a bit before they receive any crits. Of course part of the problem is that sometimes you get a crit that isn’t very helpful. The other part is that I need to crit the work of other students in order to get some likewise response.
Still, they are up and I am ahead.
The more I think on it, the more I think that the key to greater productivity in yours truly is to write the beginning and the end first. Then figure out how we get to the end of the story. The Middle is where I usually have trouble, get lost, lose interest.
Reading
I’m continuing to read Ronald Takaki’s book A Different Mirror. Today I started the chapter covering slavery in American History. Some of this is material I know already. I have to know it if I am going to teach American History 120 effectively since it will lead to the American Civil War. I am not learning anything new per se but I am getting neat little tidbits and details that I greatly enjoy hearing about.
Why wasn’t I exposed to this book? Readers know that I am no fan of political correctness run amok (and there has been plenty of that, especially here lately in the SF field). On the other hand, I can’t see deleting known history out of the narrative. If nothing else, I want to provide a complete survey, or at least as close as possible in the sixteen weeks I have. My students, all of them, regardless of their ethnicity, gender or orientation, deserve no less.
Instead of this book I was exposed to a lot of bloviation and preaching by my instructors at Park College. Instead of this book I encountered a revisionist book called Arming America, which tried to argue that gun ownership prior to the Civil War was a myth. It was the worst sort of book, pseudohistory with falsified, fictional research serving a political agenda (gun control). It won the Bancroft Award and for a long time was held up as the standard by which other historians should orient their efforts.
Turns out the book is pure bunk. Yet you can still purchase it even though most of the book’s assertions have been shown to be false.
Then there is Joseph Ellis and his work. I have trouble taking the man seriously because he lied about his military service. If he lied about that then how I can take his scholarship seriously? He especially caters to the Jefferson/Hemmings narrative which many simply accept at face value.
Myself? I’m skeptical but mainly because there seems to be some room for debate on the matter. I am not skeptical because I’m deeply wedded to the notion of protecting Thomas Jefferson. To me he is just a human being, a smart one, conflicted, and not someone who is above scrutiny.
I wonder, frankly, if I wouldn’t have turned out differently in terms of intellectual and historical development if I had encountered this book sooner.
Full report when I get done with it.
Other Fronts
Completed my Federal Aid Form today. It seems to think that my parents will contribute $80K a year to my education. I nearly fell out of the chair laughing about that. Yes, my parents help a great deal, but they do not have that kind of money. Not even now.
So I suspect I should have filled out that section on the parents after all. I’ll get a chance to change it later.
The objective, right now, is to reenter grad school this Fall. Originally I was thinking about a PhD but it turns out that the C I got fucked with in my last semester at UMKC dropped my GPA just low enough to disqualify my entry into the program.
The gift that keeps on giving. If readers think I am angry at the current editor of Asimov’s, then you have no idea how angry I am at the instructor who fucked me with the C (subjective grading standards, no rubric, and I should have appealed and sued). My anger with the editor at Asimov’s is a mere spark compared to the nuclear inferno I feel about this C.
Which is fine. I know why I was given the C and this sort of bullshit happens in academia. I was given the C to impair my efforts at getting additional graduate hours or a higher degree. There are ways to outflank that and I’ll be making use of it.
Needless to say, at some point, before I depart the planet, I will be getting some measure of revenge (legal revenge).
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Those that done said stuff