A Trio of Poems

Some days, it is better to listen . . .

I. Robert Frost

October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if the were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

II. Carl Sandburg

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

III. W.B. Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

Simply Stated

Granted, that 4th Q? Not so beautiful. The rest . . . exquisite.

Hopefully next time Pittsburgh's D will remember that they are playing football and not hockey: the game doesn't end after the 3rd, fellas!

Still . . . Here we go, Steelers! Here we go!

A Quiet Day

It began when my husband, himself not a coffee drinker, woke me with the scent of my favorite hot brew. This has been our weekend routine for some time now, ever since he learned to use my French press. He wakes, grinds the beans, measures out the water and the coarsely-ground, fragrant roast, presses, pours, and lets the oversized, steaming mug coax me from sleep. We sit in bed, talking of nothing in particular, while I lay against the pillows and sip and sip and sip.

A short time later, I made breakfast: slow-cooked oatmeal on the stove, garnished with Honeycrip apples and a bit of cinnamon. I stirred the milk as it steamed, scalding it to a pale and golden white, its warmth and scent a perfect complement to the slow, fall morning.

The day pressed on. The kids played; they built a tent out of blankets and the dining room table, and they took the kitty inside with them. We watched football. Kurt and the kids made popcorn. During the Penn State game, my son crawled up on the couch next to me and propped his cheek against my arm. It wasn’t long before I felt his head relax against me, nod just slightly forward. I lifted him into my lap. He shifted, and sighed, and smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, much the way infants do once they’ve fallen, sleepily, from the breast. Across the room, I could hear my daughter quietly talking, and talking, and talking to her Daddy.

For dinner, I made the best meatloaf of my life. A few weeks ago, I attempted tomato preserves; while the taste was perfection, the preserves didn’t set. I used some as a glaze on grilled pork, and tonight I used a jar to make meatloaf. Culinary goodness.



All I can say, today, is that sometimes beauty is simple and implicit.

A Beautiful Mind

On June 11, 2008, my grandmother went to the hospital for a routine, preventative procedure, during which she sustained significant, unexpected trauma. That singular event changed not only her entire state of existence, but it altered our family dynamic and, from all accounts, reframed and redefined both ‘the personal’ and ‘the professional’ for the doctor who performed the procedure.

It was a rough summer: just weeks after my grandmother’s trauma, my husband’s grandmother began a rapid decline, and we lost her. The day of her funeral, in Detroit, my grandmother was taken in for emergency surgery, in West Virginia, a surgery that was necessary for her survival but that she wasn’t expected to survive.

But she did survive. Strong, tough Appalachian woman, I said. But when we visited her at the hospital---in her minimally conscious state, it took me a moment to recognize that wonderful woman who has given me so much of herself . . . most symbolically through her recipes.

I treasure my “Grandma Weezy’s” recipes, and I share her love of the kitchen. On a visit to her home in Pennsylvania a few years ago, she sat me down at her kitchen table, and we went through her book--a binder filled with her favorite recipes. Of course, not one recipe in that book is followed to the letter when Grandma makes it, so she walked me through each recipe adding her own “now I don’t do thats” and “but here’s how I do its” and “it works best if you do it this ways.” I left her house that day with my own collection of annotated recipes, and they have been my source of comfort since her trauma.

She has improved and declined by turns, suffering several subsequent ‘events’ secondary to that original trauma. For just a short time around Christmas last year, she was finally--after some six months in the ICU--able to go home, but that lasted only days before she suffered seizures and a stroke and was back in the ICU. She hasn’t been able to go home since, splitting her time between a nursing and rehabilitation center, the ER, and the hospital. Sixteen months.

The last time we visited her, I took her some of my freshly canned, homemade jams. I treasure the smile she shot me as she turned the jar over in her unsteady hand.

Though she is often coherent and alert, the trauma has left its imprint on her, and she now experiences frequent confabulation. While I was talking with my mom last night, she explained that the subject of nearly all these confused memories and perceptions involves the kitchen. Grandma just baked bread (she gestures to the side table). Grandma finished canning tomatoes, or hot peppers and sauerkraut, or green beans. “Go get yourself some. They’re your favorite, and they’ll go well with that fresh bread.” And on.

All day today, I’ve been going over the conversation I had with my mom last night. It is tragic to see my grandmother--strong, independent, blithesome--so compromised. But her mind--her beautiful, beautiful mind-- seems to give her solace, seems to compensate for her present condition by placing her in her vibrant kitchen and freeing her do what her body will no longer allow.

"Things of Beauty May Be Then in Season"

I began today with an attitude of discovery, looking “up and out,” just as I had hoped. It was something of a joy to notice the spray of burgundy leaves crowning the line of trees I pass every day, to glimpse the surprising strip of vivid green framing the drying cornfields and the shock of golden chrysanthemums on display outside the fruit market, a contrast to the crates of fresh honeycrisps. Quiet, iconic October.

And then . . .

Acid-washed jeans with tapered legs. Members Only-style jackets. Neon, color block hi-tops. An abundance of safety pins worn as accessories. Pleated pants with a long rise. Footless, lace-trimmed leggings. Oversize, neon, plastic sunglasses. Canvas, checker-board print, slip-on shoes. And a Whitney Houston-“I Wanna Dance With Somebody”-style perm.

More ugly, of a different kind: the creepy, scowling, leering guy on the bus who looked like an understudy for Argus Filch. The person sitting behind me on the bus whose breath I could smell with each exhalation. Whatever it was that someone dumped into the ‘bubbler' drain ('bubbler,' by the way, is ‘Sconnie for ‘water fountain.’). Just . . . ew. Then, on the way home, it rained mud.

So on day one of purposefully seeking and noting beauty, I was surrounded by a whole lotta ugly.

"There ought to be gardens for all months in the year,
in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season."
~Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Gardens," 1625

At least I can be sure of this: October has a wicked sense of irony, and that is a beautiful thing.

An experiment

Bear with me for a moment, folks: I've grown bored with myself.

Bored with my writing, which has grown ever more academic and dense. Bored with my thinking, which feels hopelessly unremarkable. Bored with my scholarship, even as it is becoming more relevant and interesting. Boo-frickin'-hoo, right? But here's the thing: nothing worth reading has ever, I assume, come from a bore: "that which is written without labor is read without pleasure," as Johnson wrote, and labor may be a lot of things, but it is never boring.

So this morning I had a thought. I scribbled a couple lines of verse

September's final kiss--
light frost at morning's light,
the delicious scent of autumn's breath
brings promise and renewal.

(go easy on me . . . it was just a few lines of scribbled verse while I was waiting for my coffee to brew. Anyway . . . )

Autumn, for me, is the very essence of beauty and renewal, and here we are on the cusp of October. In honor of October, then, and in an attempt to shake this ridiculous self-indulgent boredom, I have decided to carry out a little experiment: once a day, for the next 31 days, I will post something that has struck me as beautiful, beauty being as good a criteria as any, I suppose.

In doing so, I want to remind myself to "look up and out"--up beyond my immediate frame of reference, out beyond the end of my own nose. In posting every day, I hope to establish a bit of a rhythm, a bit of discipline in my non-academic writing, a scheduled 'break' from the academese that will, in turn, improve my other writing efforts. I also hope that, maybe, those of you who read my musings here will enjoy the fruits of my little experiment . . . and by the end I might have created an interesting little October essay. So, I guess we'll see.

Eight Years

I'm doing what many are doing today: remembering. It comes to me in snapshots now, only eight years later, rather than in a neat and consistent narrative. Maybe that is how I experienced it, through the burdened silence and plethoric fog of disbelief and nascent grief. Snapshots.

We thought there had been a terrible accident when we turned on the news. Kurt had come by for breakfast, as was our routine. We sat in my living room, on the loveseat, eating cereal and trying to understand what we were seeing. Even the news team speculated that some freak accident had caused the plane to smash into the tower. Then, in just a glimpse between the towers, the cameras caught the second plane.


That striking, clear sky seems to have worked its way into our collective memory. Calm, still, unchanging blue.


In moments, I tried to get in touch with my friends who were in NYC: Lucy, my oldest and dearest, who worked for Viacom at the time. David, a doctoral candidate at NYU. Both responded. Lucy wanted information; they were in some sort of lock-down in her building in Midtown Manhattan, and little information was coming in. David was across the river, in a laundromat in Hoboken, describing what he saw. I saved those e-mails for a long time. Eight years and several computers later, I'm not sure where those files are.


With the world's attention on New York and, by this time, D.C., the news out of PA was but a footnote, an aside: "Another plane has gone down in rural Pennsylvania, about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh." That's it. No detail. Selfish, I know, but those were the most chilling 14 words I had yet heard. I called my Dad. No answer. I called my mom. No answer. No answer. God.


I finally reached my mother some time later. She hadn't yet heard.


Later, I talked with my friend, Ryan, who lived about a mile from the crash site. He said the sound of impact woke him that morning.


I went to campus. Classes had not yet been canceled. We gathered in our offices and in the hallway, piecing together what we knew, what we thought we knew. In the Midwest, there was increasing anxiety about the security of Chicago. Would it be targeted, too?


Classes were canceled by the late morning or early afternoon; my very dear friend, Bill, and I walked across campus together to let our students, who were likely already on their way to class, know. I spoke to my students briefly--they were already in their seats. I have absolutely no idea what I said.


I spent the rest of the day in the campus cafeteria, huddled around a TV on a tall, rickety media cart with Bill, Nicky, Alex, Peter, Geoff . . . a few others came and went. Alex was feeling particularly bad after chastising the students in his early class for their lack of attentiveness and apparent apathy; he had not yet heard about the attacks when he did so, but they had.


That evening, Kurt and I went to his folks' house. We were all . . . quiet. And even though Kurt and I were not yet married--were not even yet engaged--it was very important, somehow, to be with family. And that's exactly what they were . . . even then.


What is extraordinary to me is the immediacy of these snapshots, fragmented though they may be, and the banality of them. The logical memory recalls, reflects, but the emotional memory seems to evoke, and in doing so eight years could be eight seconds or eight decades: the heaviness, the quietness, press as fully and steadily as they did in those moments eight years ago, slipping, somehow, into timelessness.

Of Rescue Plans and Five-Paragraph Essays

My pal Bradley brought this piece to my attention this morning, so I thought I'd share. I'd be very interested to hear folks' thoughts. My initial thoughts follow.

A Rescue Plan for College Composition and High-School English by Michael B. Prince, associate professor of English at Boston University, where he directed the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program from 2000 to 2008.



Image by Jordin Isip for the Chronicle Review

I need to read and consider the piece more carefully, and a bit more coffee wouldn't hurt. Still, my initial response involves bristling at the notion of 'a rescue plan' (in the singular) for 1. High School English, 2. the SAT et al. AND 3. College Composition. Conflating these three very (fortunately) distinct, very (unfortunately) divorced projects seems problematic from the get-go. Yes, HSE tends to teach to the SAT in addition to addressing, broadly and in the best circumstances, rhetorical awareness. Yes, the SAT metric is based on approaches to writing that run counter to the values and strategies about writing that we comp/rhet folk introduce and/or promote and support in our classrooms. I'm not sure, however, about Prince's argument about FYC: there are exciting and emergent approaches happening in FYC across the board: private schools are implementing a rigorous rhetoric-based curriculum, larger schools are working on interdisciplinary collaborative approaches to the curriculum with 'pods' and, at UW, FIGs (an incredible program, by the by). Change is happening, but it is an evolution. Just go to Cs and you can see countless panels that explore innovative, promising, grounded approaches. College Composition needs not be 'rescued.' I'm excited enough about what is going on in FYC that I requested it this Fall after teaching mid-levels and doing WPA work these several years; what I will engage this Fall is a very different approach than it was just five years ago.

I am firmly in the camp that sees the need for rhet/comp courses to be content courses (as opposed to 'skills' courses), and it is a growing, if contentious, movement. The fact remains, however, that "rhetoric is at once everywhere and nowhere": what student learn in FYC et al. rhet/comp courses will be useful and applicable in other endeavors. Critical thinking is a rhetorical strategy . . . and it is not the only rhetorical strategy we teach.

The Palin Rhetoric

So, I admit it: I've been a lazy blogger of late, more often cribbing discussions I've been having on Facebook than posting original content. But hey--I'm claiming intercontextuality and continuing with the trend (truly, though, I just happen to think some discussions are worth of wider circulation).

The most recent lazy blog, then, comes from a story posted by my friend, Bradley, who readers may notice makes a frequent cameo on this blog. Anywho . . .

Today Bradley posted a link to Dahlia Lithwick's piece for Slate, "Lost in Translation: Why Sarah Palin really quit us." Thought provoking and accurate, the piece got me thinking, so here are my 2-cents:

I couldn't agree more with Lithwick--but I think it goes even a little deeper than a lack of rhetorical finesse. I think Palin is trying to invoke a particular vernacular that signals that she is a "real deal, everyday American gal." I have always argued that Bush-43 utilized a very carefully crafted ethos through his bumbling, good ol' boy vernacular--and say what you will, it worked for a long, long while. His manner mitigated the ivy league/working class tensions that exist in the minds of many, and it prompted his opponents to "misunderestimate" him. Ultimately, that ethos failed and came back to bite him, but I have little doubt that it contributed to his initial, broad appeal. Still, when necessary, Bush could deliver a clear message and even a powerful, effective speech (think his 9/11 speech, which is, rhetorically speaking, quite well crafted and effective).

Now, for Palin (and thanks to Bush-43) that card had been played, and it is now a tired routine. That was strike 1. Strike 2: Palin never played that card half as well as former President Bush.

Strike 3, I think, came in the form of her bull-headed unwillingness to think about her audience and unique rhetorical situation. I've known plenty of people with good ideas who simply cannot communicate them; I've known wonderful communicators who were, after the lovely rhetoric, devoid of good ideas. Palin, I think is a unique case. She seems uninterested in communicating, and so we are left wondering IF she has good ideas. It seems that Palin speaks for an audience of ONE (that one, of course, being herself--and therefore, her discourse is deeply encoded, perforated as if awaiting Gestalt intervention). In studying interaction, once can really only observe and assess what the participants treat as real; in Palin's case, even that is unclear.

Ultimately, she reminds me of the student--and anyone who teaches writing and rhetoric at an intermediate or advanced level knows this student-- who writes in a jumbled, garbled, rambling, ‘noisy’ style completely devoid of internal logic and who seems insulted, affronted that you, as the instructor, don’t ‘get’ his or her genius. It is a challenge to explain just where the writing goes wrong, and a greater challenge to convince the student that there is a problem, one that he or she can overcome.

Ultimately, both parties can end up repeating themselves with growing frustration as they ride this rhetorical Ferris wheel, an unsalvageable situation until at least one party is willing and able to shift into critical engagement mode and slow the ride. In the case of Sarah Palin, neither party seems willing—and she seems particularly resistant, electing instead to yell “faster, faster!”

I think her resignation is a direct result of this crazy ride. Her motivation may truly be noble, but who could tell? And that, I think, is truly unfortunate.

Big Does Not Equal Ubiquitous

Just this morning, a friend drew my attention to yesterday's New York Times Op/Ed by Paul Krugman, "The Big Hate," and it got me thinking . . .

While Krugman's point is well taken, I still think it is a dire mistake to conflate the positions of the loudest, most violent and even sociopathic members of our society with a broader ideology and political organization. The logic doesn't hold: these token 'members' of a group are outliers, and they do not necessarily represent the views or actions of the wider, inherently diverse constituency to which they claim membership . . . and that holds true for any extreme and misguided manifestation (or bastardization) of a political, social, or philosophical position.

With the increasingly violent and tragic events of the past month--slain doctors and Army recruiters, shrill 'celebrity' commentators, horrifying and ugly physical reminders of diseased, seething, and still-extant hatred played out in the halls of a national memorial and monument--attention must be paid to the relationship between language, thought, and action (a matter explicitly rhetorical).

That said, to my mind one of the biggest threats to civic discourse is the all-too-common practice of fallacy that leads even the most well-intentioned among us to permit a small yet terrible number of self-sponsored individuals to represent the attitudes and behaviors of a larger cohort. Seductive though it may be to hold these specimens up as examples of the thoughts and behaviors one, personally, finds objectionable or even reprehensible as a means to oppose and critique, the practice compromises temperance and undermines reason, progress, and responsible engagement.

(Re)Imagining a Common Ground

I have a very difficult time even talking about what has become such a divisive, sedimented 'abortion trope' in our civic discourse, and I have grown weary of the equally emotional, vehement opposition (to put it politely) and even disdain that I encounter--have come to expect-- when I express my opposition to elective abortion. I have in recent years, therefore, opted not to engage the discourse.

That said, Ross Douthat's 8 June 2009 New York Times column, "Not All Abortions are Equal," struck me as worthy of consideration, especially this passage:

"But the law is a not a philosophy seminar. It’s the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense. And it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons.

Indeed, the argument that some abortions take place in particularly awful, particularly understandable circumstances is not a case against regulating abortion. It’s the beginning of precisely the kind of reasonable distinction-making that would produce a saner, stricter legal regime."

Perhaps, by re-imagining the common ground, the ability to engage thoughtful, respectful, worthwhile discussion about abortion is actually possible. With any luck, deliberative and responsible discussion will mitigate the violence--both in the language and in the unthinkable acts of physical violence we've seen in recent weeks.

"Unconditional Love"

After all that seriousness, a little hockey levity.

This is what happens when a Pennsylvania Girl Marries a Michigan boy.

This is my mother-in-law, Suzanne, my father-in-law, Bob, and my kids, Anya and Gideon, ready for Game 5.

Cheers!

It weighs heavy . . .

"So Right It's Wrong"
The ten conservative women Cimbalo, ostensibly speaking for men-in-the-collective, would like to "hate-fuck."

Excuse me?

I don't know how to approach this subject, as sickened as I am about it. Nothing I could say, really, negates the brutality and depravity of Guy Cimbalo's recent piece for Playboy. Fortunately, others--whose words do not stick in their throats in a sickening, suffocating mass as they negotiate such blatant flagitiousness--have said what I cannot.

Megan at Jezabel writes,

it's not as if Cimbalo does anything in his piece but slag on these women for having the audacity to be attractive, conservative, opinionated and loud about those opinions.

Chip Hanlon writes for The Huffington Post (via AlterNet),

We all know that many good people on both sides of the aisle never consider entering the political arena because the brutal, personal nature of political attacks makes them think to themselves, 'why bother?' Well, it's not hard to imagine an article like this possibly having a chilling affect on some woman out there who might be thinking of running for office herself.

[. . .] condemn this grotesque Playboy article on the basis that it might have just such an impact on a woman who could make a difference.

There are, in fact, many such discussions circulating about Cimbalo's piece and the decision by Playboy to not only post, but promote, this vile rhetoric that I really need not say much; however, I'm not so sure I applaud Playboy's decision to remove the piece from its site, and here's why:

Cimbalo's piece represents an insidious and terrifying reality that must be called out. Language is bound to thought and to action. Forcing such horrifying inclinations and deeply embedded assumptions into hiding does little to address the real problems: first, that these unspeakable perceptions exist at all and, second, they pose a legitimate threat that compromises the integrity of a moral society.

Stanley Cup Redux

Gosh, like last year, I'm so torn.

First, I am both a Penguins fan AND a Red Wings fan--and yes: one can be both.

Last year, I picked Detroit for the win; this year, I picked the Pens . . . but I have to admit that it is tough to back a team who behaves so poorly.



Straighten up, Pens. Keep your cool. Save the heat for legitimate play: with a little discipline, you could be--dare I say it?--a worthy opponent for the Wings.


Related: Jeff Passan's Yahoo! Sports critique of the NHL is worth a look.

What I Have to Show . . .

D-I-double S-E-R-T-A-T-I-O-N
Should have based my study on Ralph Ellison
Or maybe I just should have stayed in medicine . . .

D-I-double S-E-R-T-A-T-E
It’s a word-- have you heard?--
guaranteed to perturb
It’s Dissertate! for me.

D-I-double S-E-R-T-A-T-I-O-N
Though I really kinda dig the theory
Foucault and Derrida can make me weary.

D-I-double S-E-R-T-A-T-E
Writer’s block, watch the clock,
Read a little more of Locke.
It’s Dissertate! for me.

One more time!

D-I-double S-E-R-T-A-T-I-O-N
Who knew it could inspire such self-loathing?
(Oh, suck it up and quit your damn bemoaning.)

D-I-double S-E-R-T-A-T-E
It’s the path that I chose,
Now I’m off to compose . . .
It’s Dissertate! for me.


Okay, so now that that's out of the way . . .

Cross-Checking: A Lesson in Semantics

In hockey, it's a penalty.

In engraving, it's a necessity.

Case in point: today's Wall Street Journal piece, "The Stanley Cup Could Use an Editor" by Reed Albergotti investigates the fascinating and, as blogger Puck Daddy (Greg Wyshynski) put it, "unintentionally hilarious" errors that have been engraved into the Cup over the last 117 years. Frankly, I'm really impressed that they continue to stamp the thing by hand; now that's craftsmanship.

Still, some of the errors--but especially the, uh, shorthand notations--that appear on the Cup are worth perusing, whether you are a hockey fan or not. One that had me laughing like a ten-year-old boy: the entry for the 1944-1945 champions, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Allow me to draw your attention to poor F.J. Selke (line four) and Arc Campbell (line six):


Ah, semantics. It is amazing the difference context makes.

Communities of Discourse . . . In the Community

I have the good fortune to count among my good friends two colleagues, Dr. William Bradley and soon-to-be-Dr. Heidi Stevenson, whose intelligence is rivaled only by their sense(s) of humor. Witty, thoughtful, ethical, and fair, Bill and Heidi consistently command my attention and respect, and I can always count on them for exceptional conversations—from the inane to the profound. That is why, spurred by a conversation we began on facebook this morning and at Bill’s suggestion, I have decided to post this entry.

A recent news item profiled a teacher in Milwaukee who, after finding graffiti adorning public property in her community, decided to ‘fight back’ by posting red flyers critiquing the graffiti artist’s/ perpetrator’s (depending on your stance) grammar. The story, appearing in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has already been taken up by numerous other news outlets. For those of us with an investment in composition and rhetoric, as well as in education, Beth Biskobing—the teacher in question—misses the mark, as well as an important teaching opportunity.

As Heidi noted when she posted the story to her profile, “This woman has no concept of the term ‘discourse community.’” And this is where the conversation begins. What follows is a compilation, in part, of our conversation:

C: Hahahaha . . . imagine a world where graffiti employs 'proper, correct' English grammar!

Still, I kinda dig her for bringing graffiti in to her class and "geekifying" it. At least she is, inherently, showing how language may employ different conventions and works in different contexts--even if she doesn't explicitly address it as such.

H: That's the part that bugs me--not explicitly addressing the fact that her "proper" grammar is only proper and functional in a very specific context--and don't get me started on her lack of discussion of why or how it's proper. The critical pedagogue part of me bristles at the thought of this. The ecocompositionist part of me shakes her head and sighs. All that said, the thought of graffiti written in academic, "Standard English" is pretty funny.

C: Well, true. But it's a start, right? Just another reason I would love to see more conversations between K-12 educators and Comp/Rhet scholars: I understand that primary and secondary educators have different constraints, but so much of the pedagogy—especially secondary pedagogy—seems to ignore the research in the field. As you point out, and as this teacher's exercise shows, such research is certainly relevant to primary and secondary teaching practice. It is a conversation worth having . . . and a fun lesson, to boot.

B: [posting a slightly different version of the same news story to his profile:] I can agree that the question "Where da bitches at?" is offensive, but it's not because it ends with a preposition, for God's sake. I can't imagine that this type of pedantic arrogance serves any purpose other than making the teacher herself feel smug. Hey, fellow English teachers? THIS is why students hate us. Just sayin', is all.

[. . .] this version (which is a bit longer [. . .] has some fairly obnoxious quotes from the teacher). I've never met this woman, but I feel quite confident I know her. You know what I mean? As you said, this is a woman who has never even heard the phrase "discourse community"-- instead, she's just convinced that "black people speak incorrectly." And, again, the misogyny in the question isn't even discussed, really (except for the too-precious-for-words "bitches are female dogs, betcha didn't know that, tee-hee!"). But then again, this isn't about having a teachable moment-- it's about grammatical shaming.

H: Yep. She's "smart," and she'll never let anyone forget it. It's sad to see that as the guiding principle behind a person's teaching.

C:The posting of flyers is a bit much, no? Ever the Pollyanna, I tried to make lemonade out of this, but there is so much more than a fine line between a 'teaching moment' and, as you say, Bill, pedantic arrogance.

But hey--why should K-12 teachers worry themselves about little things like discourse communities and understanding how and why particular conventions develop within them? Why bother with such nuisances as cultural assumptions? Why contextualize when one can boil everything down to right and wrong? After all, isn't it our job--as post-secondary instructors--to debunk such myths? That is what we do in FYC, right? Otherwise, what might we teach?*

Guess the coffee kicked in. Where I fist saw potential, a step toward having such discussions in the K-12 classrooms, now I'm just annoyed.

What a lost opportunity. It is one thing to bring the graffiti into the classroom to discuss it; it is quite another to ignore its context and post flyers in the community that, in essence, state "I know more than you." Foolish. Rude. Faulty.

But I still see it as a teaching moment—for her.

H: It has potential--just quite possibly lost potential, and that makes me sad. It could have been an introduction to the issue I brought up in regards to your link this morning--academic and public writing. It could have been a moment in which that teacher helped her students understand that people whose writing deviates from the academic norm are wrong, or stupid . . .it just seems like she ignored that opportunity and did the exact opposite.

B: [I’ll] just add—all joking aside—that I think you and Heidi are absolutely right when you talk about this being a teachable moment for her. This could have been an opportunity to discuss discourse communities-- hell, she could have even taken the opportunity to explain the value in being fluent in more than one discourse, because there are people out there who believe "academic=correct" and "urban slang=incorrect." But instead she just posted these cutesy little signs berating the vandal (and, coincidentally, creating an even more irritating eyesore for her neighborhood) for his "errors."

I also think that there might have been a useful conversation about the term "bitches" among urban youth to describe women in general, and to ask about the possessive assumptions that underlie the question of "where they at?" There's legitimate ignorance to criticize in this discourse community, but the problem isn't that their English doesn't always sound like mine.

So what? Well, only that here you have the informal conversation of three people deeply invested in education and language who are troubled by Beth Biskobing’s ‘rebuttal.’ Her actions serve little purpose and offer nothing of real substance to the situation. This was an opportunity rich with potential—for discussing language, rhetoric, communities of discourse, cultural assumptions, exigence (i.e. what might have compelled the agent to act?), kairos (at that time), and all the other elements of a rhetorical situation (see Bitzer)—so many possibilities presented to this teacher of language.

In short, Biskobing missed an opportunity to teach—and even understand—the relationship between critical thinking and language.

Instead, Biskobing wields her ‘learning’ as a weapon, ignoring the fact that language is situated, that rules and conventions are only appropriate and useful in a particular and unique context, and that correctness is determined by the entirety of a rhetorical situation, one that is informed by a complex web of cultural meaning. With her action, completely devoid of rhetorical awareness, she merely capitalized on an opportunity to “show off’ her mad grammatical skills


. . . or might that be ‘skilz.’

A Model Republican

From Janie Lorber's piece in the New York Times, yesterday:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday that he preferred Rush Limbaugh’s brand of conservatism to former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s [. . . more]

My prediction: we will soon see a shift in the battle, not over what the party stands for or who among us 'bears the standard,' but who--which subgroup within the GOP--will get to call themselves "Republican" and who will constitute something . . . else. Trouble is, factions on all sides of the chasm(s) are brand loyal, so none will give up without a fight.

I certainly know who I hope carries the day, and let's just say I'm disinclined to allow a radio personality to lead a political party--that blurs the line between pop culture and governance too much for my taste.

From NPR's All Things Considered: April 23, 2009

The segment begins, "Thirty-eight years ago this week . . ."

Senator John Kerry this week chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the same committee he once stood before, voicing his opposition to military action in Vietnam. A different war, a different time, a remarkable juxtaposition. History, or perhaps our desire to see patterns and construct narratives, certainly lends itself to poetics.

In hearing the excerpted testimony of the Afghan war veterans, I was most affected by the testimony and perspective of Ret. Army Capt. Wesley Moore:

"We are under-funded and under-manned in Afghanistan. [. . .] We have fought this war on the cheap, and I say that not only on the military side, but particularly on the civilian support side and the reconstruction side” (1:46).

Put simply, I am continually humbled by reminders that domestic perceptions—public opinion—and support for our military personnel matters to those serving. It is a small but significant revelation I’ve seen not just here, in Capt. Moore’s testimony, but in reading veterans’ memoirs and accounts of combat and in talking with veterans. It is one thing to say “support our troops”; it is quite another to understand what that means to active duty servicemen and women.

Capt. Moore also notes that our forces are dealing with

“insurgents who were not Taliban for cause, but Taliban for hire”(2:24),

offering, to my mind, more than sufficient justification for President Obama’s decision to commit more troops and funds to the cause in Afghanistan.

Opinions on the war aside, with this particular moment—this senate hearing—I am struck, once again, by the way historic moments often transpire quietly, simply, in footnotes to the events that demand the national—or international—stage and capture our collective attention. I am also reminded, here, of Chekhov's lines from "The Student":

"'The past [. . .] is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.' And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered."

It is a moment worthy of attention.

The Quandry

aka "The Baby and the Bathwater"

Q: Is it possible to legitimately separate an argument, a thread or a particular claim, from its philosophical and ideological moorings? To appropriate and apply the premise but reject the foundation from which that premise has emerged? What are the consequences? And am I brave enough—or smart enough—to attempt it? To pull it off successfully?

This is a problem I have been grappling with for quite some time, and it is causing both disquiet and stagnation as I attempt to negotiate the problem, as it is always flowing like an underground river through my dissertation.

Specifically, I find objectionable the implicit violence I read in Critical Literacy texts that call for toppling ‘dominant discourses’ and prescribe an activist political stance toward pedagogy. But while I reject the activist forces that drive the movement, I cannot dismiss the value and importance of the conclusions and arguments advanced by Freire and Giroux, among others. I have written about this tension before, going as far to include in a prelims essay the following:

[. . .] critical literacy holds important implications for understanding the complexity of ethos and for theorizing, practicing, and designing pedagogies that operate on the principle of ethical beneficence and its corollary, Primum non nocere.

However . . .

[Critical Literacy] seems, to me, to assume that power is a zero-sum game and that, in its most extreme interpretation, in order for oppressed or marginalized literate traditions to fully participate or access a given discourse, the existing powers must be countered, resisted, or deposed—almost violently. Its calls, either implicitly or explicitly, for radical pedagogical activism, seem to risk overturning existing hegemonies only to replace them with others [. . .]

and . . .

Insofar as I agree with the many of the claims of Critical Literacy, I can’t help but feel somewhat vilified by them. I am torn between my heritage, the values that inform the culture I live, and the desire to ensure that others have equal and just protections extended to them. And I am unsure how to resolve the problem.

I wrote those passages back in the spring and summer of 2007; a year-and-a-half later, I am no closer to reconciliation. Perhaps I’m too close to it, the old “can’t see the forest for the trees” situation. So I’m asking folks who are smarter than I—what say you? Can I legitimately concede, even embrace, the point while rejecting the call to action--or, at least, the recommended course of action?

Is this something you have encountered? A problem with which you have been able to contend?