Two Feet In | Writing and the Institution

Notes [showing more about my own note-taking habits than any obvious learning going on; see Zebroski, reading protocols] Awkward prefatory remarks -- condescending, even. Reflection: When I asked students the next day to discuss Orosco's presentation, everyone felt that the prefatory comments were a waste of time and "made no sense at all." Community Service Organization (CSO) > Chicago Industrial Organization (Alinsky, Rules for Radicals ) Reflection: My first reading of RfR was actually at North Harris College, class unknown. Things have changed. I still have that paperback copy and was looking for additional copies recently and found conservative responses to Alinksy, some of whom believe he's Mephistopheles himself. I tried to read portions of these responses and they're horribly written -- zeal, without knowledge. Nor empathy. Nor concern about community. Alinsky didn't start the culture wars, but those who fight them see him as a kaiser of...

I was asked to read ... a text  this week. It was flat, bland, uninspiring, safe. The text attempted to reach an audience that doesn't exist, using signs that lead to nowhere. It was safe. It was academic-ish. It would offend no one, nor inspire anyone. I gave some feedback -- safe, uninspired, uninterested because the text is uninteresting. That's the way it is sometimes ... texts passing in the night as uninteresting, unengaging, as the Palace Guards -- form, and some purpose, but largely immaterial to one's real life. Then I sat with a student today and he shared a paragraph response to the Students' Right to Their Own  Language  statement, which I have all students read at the beginning of the semester. Actually, only the first 8 pages for the first week, and that discussion keeps us busy for several weeks later. It's a difficult text for first year students, but with only a few days in the course, this student comes up with this in his writing journal: 29...

Reflections on my Whiteness III This entry was supposed to be a continuation of my reflection of my own whiteness as I went to college and then into the professional work for. That part will be quick. But, considering #Ferguson and its aftermath, I have to jump to the present instead of so much detail of the past. Private university, mostly white students; English Literature major = mostly white students. When English Literature is discussed, it is almost always the "dead white man" variety, postcolonialism notwithstanding. It's disheartening today to see syllabi of American Lit and even British Lit nearly full of dead white men, ignoring a) more women writers than we like to admit; b) American Native (Canadians use the better term, "First Nations") writers; then c) the constellation of authors of color who are routinely given only token notice. Every Lit professor knows Cisneros, but I'll bet $10 that most can't name ten Hispanic American author...