I began the semester with 36 students in two courses. Grades go in today. Look at all the fours! Unfortunately, WIU doesn’t have plus/minus grading, or I would have assigned five B+ and two C+ grades.
A: 4
B: 11
C: 4
F: 5
U: 4
W: 4
early drops: 4
The “U” is a non-punitive grade assigned in composition courses, basically “failed [...]
Our graduate committee recently finished the paperwork for a comprehensive revision of our graduate program. “Update” is an understatement. The old curriculum was state of the art around 1970. Maybe 1870. Coursework covered three areas: British Literature, British Literature, and Other. The roster of courses long abandoned would be funny if it wasn’t pathetic.
We’re replacing [...]
The Easterling-Dilger household is bustlin’ these days, so bloggin’ sometimes has to take a back seat.
I’m very, very glad to say I’m reading a fair amount these days. I’m halfway through a second reading of Tufte’s Beautiful Evidence, which has some very good bits. Lisa Gitelman’s Always Already New is next, and for fun Shipley [...]
Some very strong projects this year in both the Style course and Computers & Writing:
Nascent standup comedian Ryan Budds created a site to promote himself, nicely integrating Flickr, Google Calendar, YouTube, and traditional web pages.
Lora Carmichael wrote a conference presentation which provides methods for teaching writing style to high school students, asserting that it [...]
I just posted my second final exam via weblog, and now I’m listening to the pleasant sound of twenty-six hands typing furiously. I wish it was in OpenOffice format, but we only have Borg Office in our computer classrooms. Some nifty projects to share this semester; I’ll say more about that before too long.
This semester [...]
About my Fall courses: ENG 480, Computers & Writing, and ENG 481, Style
This fall I get to teach our topics in composition studies course, in both Macomb and the QC. So, style! I’m thinking about the following texts:
Start with excerpts from Queneau, Exercises in Style, and excerpts from rhetorical texts which show evolution in thinking style (Aristotle, Demetrius, Meacham, Sprat, Abbott, Genung).
Look at some style guides: [...]
Last week I met with a very bright student who had transferred to Western from Illinois. She has enrolled in our teacher education program and is thinking about graduate school, so I explained some of the patterns in English studies which many students don’t know (where you can teach with various degrees, etc). I’m always [...]
Today is the first day of classes. For the last week I’ve woken up at 5:50am, alarm clock or not. I’m still a bit of legwork away from being prepared for classes, and my first are at 11:00am, so I gotta keep this short. But I have to say I’m looking forward to a section [...]
I’ve reached the time in winter break when I think, “Jeez, where did the time go?” The temptation, of course, is for panic to set in: will I get my spring syllabi done? the double bill of essay revisions? the long runs? the editing for our collection? the T&P portfolio? the work on the house?
Of [...]