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23055. wonkers2 - 12/1/2007 8:48:51 PM Mago, there you go again! Sending us bad weather.
Whatever happened to thoughtful? I miss her, too. Did the Wiz run her off? 23056. arkymalarky - 12/1/2007 9:52:33 PM Well, Judith, they've closed the middle bridge in the bottoms--the big metal and wood one. I don't know if they're going to replace it or not, but for now we can't get there from here. I hope they don't tear down the bridge. 23057. judithathome - 12/1/2007 9:59:54 PM Oh damn....why did they do that? All in the name of progress, I suppose?
That was about the coolest bridge I've ever been on...damn, damn, damn it. 23058. arkymalarky - 12/1/2007 10:21:47 PM We looked underneath and it was rusted. I know they won't pay to restore it, so either they'll leave it closed, which would be fine by me, or they'll tear it down and replace it, which will take a while. If they do that, I told Bob I want it. We could put over the creek by the trail. 23059. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 1:42:08 AM Mags,
School is going well. I'm in the crunch here with papers and projects before finals. I'm actually getting kind of sad that I won't be in school next semester. The last week or so I've been seriously thinking about a Masters degree. I won't do that until after I get my credential, but it wasn't anything I'd really much thought about before in concrete terms.
At this very moment I'm getting ready to go write my paper for my African American history class. The issue is one I've worked with before, but the challenge for this paper is that it is so short but has a ton of sources, all of which have to be quoted. I'm sitting here wondering where in the heck my actual paper is supposed to show up between all the quotations. ;-> 23060. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 2:16:36 AM My advice is go for it now, No. Mose is glad she's doing it, even with her teaching load, and I waited too long and had to do it too fast, which I'm sure is much of the reason I'm dealing with heart problems now.
And my next advice would be that as soon as you know teaching is for you, go for your National Board Certification. I would like to have that accomplishment before I retire (not to mention the money), but it's looking like that's not likely.
You all know I try not to say much about myself professionally, but I think I've been a good teacher. Unfortunately that's measured as much by the credentials in the eyes of many people--more, really--than the actual work you do in the classroom. And the more creds you can get early, the more money, the less stress later, the more options for you during your career, and the better your retirement or career change options down the line.
By the time I started my MSE I had to finish it in a year and a half, and not getting it would have meant retirement would be very difficult and my options if my school consolidates, which is very likely to happen after next year, were significantly limited. Now I could fully retire, work part time, or continue as I am right now if the stress is not too bad. The stress can't come back. That's the one factor that's got to be a part of whatever I do after next year. And teaching is ZERO stress for me. It's all the other crap, and/or changing schools. I'm just not willing to do it any more, even the fun crap, which there's a lot of in teaching.
If my school stays open I may never retire. I'll go to part time when and if I get ready, and keep on trucking until they wheel me out the door. 23061. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 2:17:47 AM What's your paper, btw. I did at least two on A-A education issues. 23062. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 2:27:41 AM What's National Board Certification? I swear, I've been so haphazard about all of this stuff. Actually, that's not true. What I did was get the runaround from too many people who didn't really know all the ins and outs of everything and just decide that I had to figure things out on my own. The problem seems to be that there isn't any ONE person or office that knows everything or even the majority of things so that you can go there and get answers.
My paper is on W.E.B. DuBois' concept of two-ness as presented in his work The Souls of Black Folks, and how it is represented within the required 10 sources as it relates to The Great Migration, WWI and the Harlem Rennaisance.
In five to six pages, Chicago style.
Seriously, the paper must be five pages long but cannot exceed six pages or she's docking the grade. Talk about learning to be concise and very, very focused! The problem isn't writing --- there's enough material there for a freakin' dissertation --- the problem will be getting what I need to say said in the allotted space.
I'm looking for very, very short quotations.
23063. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 2:37:53 AM It's a national accreditation process.
What I did was get the runaround from too many people who didn't really know all the ins and outs of everything and just decide that I had to figure things out on my own. The problem seems to be that there isn't any ONE person or office that knows everything or even the majority of things so that you can go there and get answers.
This is almost universal with people who decide to go into education. Most people do what you've done, largely because state departments of education and education departments in most universities are infamous for being unable to find their butts with both hands.
GREAT topic. I'd love to read it after you're done if you have time to email it. I'll send you one of mine on Invisible Man, though I don't know if there are any resources or direct source quotes used in them that might help you. Might be worth a skim through the references and quotes, though. My paper had to be very long, but I still had real problems editing it down to the maximum length of 20 pages. And it's not error-free, but the main thing is whether there's any short-quote stuff or place to find them that might help you out. 23064. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 2:44:48 AM I'm using the inro to Invisible Man as one of my sources.
We're required to use 3 poems, 3 short stories, and 3 essays from an anthology we use in class as well as referring to the relevant chapters in our official class text.
Hold on, I'll give you a list in a sec. I've got water boiling for noodles. 23065. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 2:51:10 AM Poems:
We Wear the Mask - Paul Lawrence Dunbar
The Daily Grind - Fenton Johnson
America - Claude McKay
Theme for English B - Langston Hughes
Short Stories:
Temptation (from Tales of Simple) - Langston Hughes
Invisible Man (Inrtoduction) - Ralph Ellison
McDougal - Frank London Brown
Essays:
The Souls of Black Folk - W.E.B. DuBois
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow - Richard Wright
No Day of Triumph - J. Saunders Redding
I was REALLY irritated that there wasn't any Zora Neal Hurston in the anthology, but it was published in 1968 so she may have been politically out of favor at that time. 23066. jexster - 12/2/2007 3:33:16 AM I took African American Lit at Tulane back in the day...for an easy English credit...hehehehe
That's partially how come I be so enlightened 23067. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 3:40:47 AM This is actually a history class, but there's a lot of literature involved which makes it especially engaging. Depressing as hell, sometimes, but most of this material isn't new to me. I don't know if I got this stuff through osmosis, or what. I think having family roots in South Carolina makes one a bit like a West German. 23068. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 3:42:48 AM We read Their Eyes Were Watching God in my graduate American Novels class.
That is an incredible amount required for such a short paper. 23069. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 4:28:46 AM Yeah, it really is. It averages out to roughly four cites per page, three of them direct quotations. It bothers me because it doesn't allow me to really address any of the works other than in passing.
I've got all but one of my quotations compiled and my bibliography done. Now all I have to do is string them together in some semblance of coherent thought.
riiiiiight. 23070. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 4:29:39 AM It's pretty much directly backwards from the way I formulate papers. 23071. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 4:36:09 AM Me too. And in fact, it's backwards from how I teach students to develop them. If I don't, their first research paper is often an empty cut and paste. 23072. Ms. No - 12/2/2007 4:50:08 AM Yeah, it's really strange. I don't know if maybe she did it to make sure that we did all the reading in the anthology. Seems to me, if she was worried about that the proper thing to do would be to have a test on that material and give us a little more leeway in writing the paper.
I suppose it'll make it easier to grade, though. The focus is so incredibly narrow that she can almost use a checklist to do it and then address any sort of thesis or argument (what little there's room for) almost as an afterthought.
All of which makes it sound like I don't enjoy this professor or think she's a good teacher, which just isn't the case. I'm just irritated by the paper a little bit because I feel like she's underestimating our capabilities while at the same time making the thing much more difficult than it has to be. 23073. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 9:58:40 PM I suppose it'll make it easier to grade, though.
That's probably her chief motivation. Like you say, she can skim through them with a rubric and short checklist and be done. And I don't blame her for that, but she's trying to squeeze too much in. One, or even two sources per category if she wants you to show comparative understanding or analysis, and increasing the length to 8-10 pages would have done everything you're going to do with those constraints. And I very much understand her attempts to get students to be concise--as you will too, before much longer ;->--but guidelines and length requirements without cramming so much in would be the way to go, imo.
But, she's the teacher. And of course the most important thing is that she's a good one and you enjoy her class. I have a sneaking suspicion my last research professor barely looked at my paper, if he did at all--it wasn't a class, but a research problems requirement--but I just took my A and went on. I haven't seen the paper or him since, so I have no idea why I got an A.
I imagine you'll get an A and she'll be gunning for people who meander and fail to connect their theses and irritate her in an infinite number of ways only a poor paper can irritate a teacher who has a bunch of them to grade in a day or two, as they do at the end of the semester.
23074. arkymalarky - 12/2/2007 10:00:41 PM I do not assign research papers at the end of grading periods any more. Life's too short.
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