Wow.
This quarter is going to go by really fast. We just finished week 2 of the quarter, and it’s honestly just flown by–everything is going really well, but I’m just so busy! So far I’m really, really happy with the classes I’m taking, the classes I’m teaching, and especially the fact that I got paid a little bit so I could go to the grocery store today. I actually ended up fasting for the last three days, not because I didn’t have any food or money, but coincidentally I also didn’t have any food or money. I actually fasted for spiritual reasons, and with the hope that fasting would cause me to be more aware of my body and the food I’m consuming and how I actually feel.
You see, I haven’t been eating terribly, but I haven’t really been eating well either, and I was starting to get stomachaches a lot and attributing them to lack of food when in reality I think I’d just let my system get out of balance. So three days of fasting later all I can say is that everything I ate today tasted absolutely wonderful.
It helped that I went to Sunflower market and bought delicious things (though I admit I have some qualms about how they’re like supposed to be all healthy and organic but they’re also a chain…I have some notion that health food stores should be like The Earth in Norman or Open Harvest in Lincoln). Anyway, I had baguette and garlic stuffed olives and sushi (well, that was so-so) and an awesome fresh tomato. I like yummy food.
I’m sleepy.
Basically just got home from Oklahoma, where I saw many people, some of whom I wanted to see, but most of whom were OU fans going to the game on Saturday. I did get some excellent social time in on Friday with some peeps in English. We spent a lot of time talking about Ph.D. programs and first year writing curriculum, which is to be expected.
Saturday Lisa and I went out to a lake near Norman in an attempt to escape from the 90000 excited fans mulling about nearing our living spaces. It was an absolutely beautiful day and I wish I could have taken a picture of the fish jumping in the lake! Could there possibly be flying fish in Oklahoma? Were they just really hungry? I have no idea, but they were interesting.
This morning I got to go to Summit, which was wonderful, and got treated to a birthday lunch at Johnny Carinos before spending the rest of my birthday in airports or on planes.
In other news, I got into CCCCs, as did everyone at Oklahoma that I asked. This makes me very excited for a big OU reunion in New Orleans in the spring. Now I just have to find the money to go!
praise and worship
I went back, again, to Village Vineyard this morning. First, I’ll admit in a slightly sheepish manner that I basically got addicted to praise and worship at Summit, and so in a lot of ways I think I’ve been looking for good praise and worship as one of two things (the other being fellowship) in a spiritual community. This is not to say that I don’t think a good pastor who speaks well and has good sermons isn’t important; that was the very reason I stuck it out at Summit–Devon was awesome. But then somewhere along the way, as I was going to church for the message, I started actually listening to praise and worship and to, well, worship. In a way, it’s like I know I can ask and learn about Devon’s message any given week, but I can’t experience the praise and worship at Summit.
So anyway, the p&w was really good today, and I thought the message was pretty darn good too. One of the most amazing parts was that the pastor actually asked us to pick up our notebooks and write at multiple points during the service (there are notebooks under each chair for this purpose). And people actually did it! There are certainly things I don’t like, but I’ve been withholding judgment and so far it seems to be paying off because as I get a more complete picture of where things are coming from each time I go.
Day 9
Today we (finally) talked about assessment. First, Michael presented his impressions of writing assessment, an area he has clearly done a great deal of research in. He actually couched assessment in terms of argumentation, which was just genius as far as I am concerned. After the presentation we had the opportunity to assess a research paper and I thought the paper deserved a C+ or at most a B-. Generally, other GTAs seemed to agree with me. It was interesting, though, because the instructor whose student it had been sort of argued in defense of the student (not in a disagreeable way) pointing out clarifications to us that really weren’t on the assignment sheet, which we each had a copy of. It highlighted for me how important it is to be as clear as possible on my own assignment sheets, or at least to follow them as closely as possible when I don’t have editing control (we must use the assignment sheets given to us by the WPAs).
The best part of Friday, though, was the afternoon, when we got to go to the computer lab for a while and play with D2L Carmen…Scott let me share the floor a bit and I think I’m now on my way to having him know who I am 
)
Friday evening Scott Dewitt had a party for all of us and sig others at his place which is really beautiful. The party was quite nice. It feels really good to be on the way to knowing other people in Columbus…I even ended up talking to a guy from Oklahoma for a long time. He grew up in Duncan. Mostly we talked about baptists, because Oklahoma was about all we had in common since he’s not in English. I waver between really liking all the other GTAs and feeling excited to know any and all of them and then also feeling like I have nothing in common with anyone and that I’m never really going to make any friends here. I think the latter feeling is largely attributable to my own lack of self confidence and was somewhat remedied by actually calling someone on Saturday and going to a movie with her. I know I’ll make friends, logically, but I don’t always use the logical part of my brain.
Days 7/8
Yesterday we spent pretty much the whole day in the computer lab on photoshop. I had used photoshop intermittently when necessary since the late 90’s but have switched to Fireworks in the last few years because it was free at OU. It was nice to get formal training, but since graphics programs mostly work similarly it was quite figure-out-able. In other news, I caught a cold. Who catches a cold in August September you ask? Me, I guess. It’s just sort of a low-grade annoyance.
Today, the pre-quarter workshop for new TAs focused on the final assignment we’re to give our students: a call to submissions for an online journal called Commonplace. This assignment was originally constructed by two Ph.D. students, Michael Harker and Aaron McKain, and involves asking students to write a 750 word op-ed piece. Teachers then pick the eight best (or most interesting or whatever) and those get to go through a blind peer-review system (basically trading sets of essays with different first-year classes where they are then peer edited by other first-year students). What I think is really, really good about this: real audience, in-depth peer evaluation. What I’ve yet to be persuaded about: that first year writing should ever, ever be about giving the best students the most opportunities (the other sixteen essays only receive feedback from the instructor; now why should the best writers get the most feedback??). That the amount of time this takes in a very short 10 week quarter course is worth the benefits.
I will, however, teach it, as unbiasedly as possible, and will let you know what I think.
Day 6
First, day 5 has been misplaced. I spent time with Lisa instead of writing about it and now I don’t really remember anything about it. Oops. On the other hand, she and I had an awesome labor day weekend. She flew up from Okie land on Thursday and stayed through Monday. We spent some time exploring Columbus and doing the things everyone said we HAD to do (including the Greek festival and Gallery hop) We also went to this giant mall called Easton. Twice. Not that, as grad students, we can afford decent food, let alone anything in that mall! We did have an excellent time. I would like to blame this on her, but it wasn’t her fault (don’t click if you’re super squeamish). I just fell in the shower for no reason.
Today we spent the morning talking about feedback. Scott Dewitt used Nancy Sommers’ 1982 article on responding to student writing to discuss giving feedback. We did not talk about assessment and aren’t going to until Friday. I did appreciate the feedback pointers–that’s something I never feel quite confident about and I think it’s because by the time I finally get around to giving written feedback I’m always pressured for time and so therefore don’t take the time to do a first read without a pen or the seven minutes per page. It’s more like, set the kitchen time for 10 minutes. When it dings, finish up real quick and move on. That comes from the days of teaching three courses (75 students total) when I was adjuncting. Since I’m only teaching one class (but 24 students–sadly not the 19 at OU) I’m hoping to really start reading student work early and giving myself enough time to respond effectively.
This afternoon Scott continued introducing the second assignment in the sequence, the visual remix. He asked us to do a low-tech (think crayons, scissors and glue sticks) remix of an army ad that Nan Johnson used the other day when she came to speak. My group took the basic layout of the ad (a progression or timeline with an image on the right and some text at the bottom) and reworked that layout for an ad to young women using the same timeline to make a commentary on the interests of young middle class white women as opposed to the audience we saw the original ad aiming for. Anyway, it was a pretty fun activity. Tomorrow we’re learning photoshop.
