thewritingprofessor55

Good afternoon from the Fog and Flame,

I think I need a vacation. Many might say you just had one, but what I think I need is a working vacation, one where I can focus, in an uninterrupted manner. What might I do with such a “respite” of sorts? The first thing I would do is spend two or three days bringing my tech skills back up to date. I need a seminar where I can work with someone who understands things like Camtasia, Media Stream, Vision Thread, or Diigo really well and then work with them creating one artifact after another so it becomes second nature for me. I want to do some much more with the idea of a flipped class and having the various pieces that I can put into the course delivery tool will help my students. Then I would try to merely write. I need to write for a number of reasons. I have noted this in my blog posting before this, but the hammer is down and there are no excuses.

Today, as I have been in the Fog and Flame, I have run into current students, former students, graduated students, graduate students and colleagues. That has been interesting to see the cross-germination that is in that little space. Then there is the issue of paying for your drinks. I have turned to using Square Wallet. Amazing how many things I can do from my phone. As I sit here I have my Mac updating, which is taking significant time because I am on WiFi and I had not updated things for about 6 weeks. Amazing how many things that get out of day and quickly. I have been downloading OS X Mavericks for about three hours, or more.

What I started to write about earlier is my writing. I am working on a book review and it will be done by the end of the weekend. Then I need to do some additional reading about the “rhetoric of place” article that I am working on. My colleague has given me some things to manage and then I have to come up with an outline. I did some work on that article this summer and then it sat the entire fall semester. The third article is a programmatic review article and that should not be that difficult. What I need to do is manage the free time I have and then use that for writing and not random time wasting. It is the very think I tell my students all the time. Now I need to employ it too.

What I have learned more and more about myself is I get overwhelmed and then I shut down. Very little gets accomplished. I think I had too much on my plate and that is still an issue, but I am trying to make changes. Yet some of those changes have been painful and sad. Then there is the fact that I have not even managed all of that as well as I should or must. That will be part of the next week or two. I wish there was an easier way to manage my life. Then again, I should not be surprised because this time of year is difficult for me. While I have never been technically diagnosed with SAD, I am quite sure I am a person who is affected by it.

One of the things I have been really good at, at least thus far into the semester, and I am well aware that we are only two weeks into the process, is to stay ahead of the game a bit more in my classes. I have spent some long evenings in my office, but I think it is beginning to pay off. Organization is a difficult thing, particularly when it is hard to see how it all fits together, but perhaps that is the impetus for my title. Can we actually organize our randomness? Or are they merely oxymoronic and therefore, it is an exercise in futility? I think it is better to be more optimistic and work under the guise that it is possible. In fact, most everything has such a possibility, if one only take the time and puts in the effort.

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl and I had the chance to get a ticket. That would have been quite an experience, but when the Packers are not playing, it is hard for me to be excited. If the Packers were playing . . . it is a no-brainer, I would be there. It will be interesting that it is outside. It is also interesting because two Bloomsburg students (one is actually an alum) have a central role in the PR and management of the PR for the game. That is very cool.

Well, it is time to get back to another task. So, as always, thank you for reading. I hope your life is more than organized chaos. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Dr. Martin

Hello from the Fog and Flame,

I am in the Fog and Flame working on getting organized for the coming week. It is always a hope that I have my ducks-in-a-row, but to be honest, as my students will surely confirm, there are times I am more on top of things than other moments. While my intent is always good (or at least, I think it is), those best intentions are not always realized. This past week I met with three of my four sections of this semester (I still have my capstone course of sorts) that will meet tomorrow evening. First, I must commend the #FogandFlame for the great work they do every time I come in here. If you have not been here yet, you are missing a real gem here in Bloomsburg. They are working hard to make their little stop on Main Street a premier meeting place. I have my office hours here on Thursday afternoons and evenings from 3:00-7:00 p.m.. In the meanwhile, check this out (www.fogandflame.com or @FogandFlame).

Today as noted, I am merely trying to get things organized for the time up to Spring break. If I can have all my work into BOLT for my students up through the third week of March by the end of the week, I feel I can focus on other things. I am working on the “flipped” concept of teaching for my Technical Writing course this semester. While I have been aware of the concept up until now, I have not taken the time to really implement it. Because my Technical Writing course is a smaller course, I think it could be the ideal venue in which to implement this pedagogy. It reminds me that I should try to catch up with a curriculum coordinator for whom I have a great deal of respect. It has been too long. She and I have spoken about flipped classes on a few occasions.

If I accomplish what I hope to accomplish, then it will be on to reading and writing and trying to finish up a book review by tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning at the latest. The issue of writing, ironically, in spite of all I do that involves writing, has become more of a difficulty for me. I am not sure if it is I feel incapable or frightened. It is a bit weird to me, but for whatever reason, much like my students, I am struggling to get started. So I have found all sorts of ways to work with it and about it without doing it. That is a problem for a number of reasons. Some of them obvious and some not so obvious. The main issue is that I have to publish. I have so much actually written, but I am petrified to send it out. Rejection happens, but R and R is not a bad thing. I also am fortunate to have some people work with me, so I merely need to do it. I need to listen to Nike I guess.

Actually, I am very excited about all of the classes this semester. I think the changes I have made in texts for my Foundations classes will work with the memoir paper more effectively. I am going to try to do some different things with The Cider House Rules this semester. I think the question about Prochoice versus Prolife is such a complex societal issue and many are not willing to look at the complexity of this issue. I am always reminded of a person, one who was both a friend and a floormate when I first went to college. He borrowed money twice to “take care of an issue” with his girlfriend. The first time I did not think much about it; the second time, I remember asking pointedly, “wouldn’t a condom be cheaper?” I realized I was not comfortable nor was I supportive of those who used abortion as a form of birth control. As I have worked with Irving’s book now, off-and-on, for 10 years, I have been continually amazed how he lays out this controversial topic in very different ways in the book and the movie (he wrote the screen play for which he received an Academy Award). In addition, I am doing some more technological things for their learning outcomes. It will be interesting to see how this happens as I am still formulating that assignment.

In my Writing for Multiple Media class, I am fortunate to have some returning students from the fall Writing for the Internet class. That was one of my best group three classes (part of the Professional Writing minor) and I am hoping to build on that this semester. Because I have two client groups that are the same as well as a template for the other three groups from something a group did last semester, I am hoping that this can be one of my best semesters at Bloom. While it will involve some work, I am hoping that it will be certainly worth the time and effort.

Well, while this has been part of what I need to do, it has also been a way to do the very thing I noted in my title. Back to writing and organizing.

Thanks to all who have read.

Dr. Martin (aka: Michael)

Good snowy morning (it is after midnight as I write this) from Pennsylvania,

Earlier today I participated in the winter commencement event for the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts here at Bloomsburg University, where I serve students as a professor in the English Department and as the director of a professional writing program. All too often we are provided platitudes about how this is a beginning, yes, a commencement, but today I listened to one of my colleagues provide one of the most inspirational addresses I think I have ever been blessed to hear. She asked them what they were going to do with what they had, the foundation they have been provided. She used a great blend of her own story and some thoughts about Sherlock Holmes. It was one of the few times in my life that I believe I heard something worth taking away from the event. Thank you, #Dr. #Marion #Mason. After the service, as is often the case, I had an opportunity to meet some parents, to see some former students and  to think about what they have accomplished, and to imagine what their lives might become. That was part of Dr. Mason’s message . . .  what will the adjectives you use someday be?? She encouraged them to see themselves as more an merely one of the graduates.

This week I have been required to think about that again: where will our lives go? How will we become the person we do? What are the things that will influence our paths and help us understand who we are? What I know is what we often think about ourselves and what others think about us might be quite different. I have had the amazing gift of having a friend in my life since I was four years old. His mother and my mother were close friends; his father and my father were church men together and throughout my childhood, the three kids in their family and the three in my family (of which I was one) did most everything together. I cannot imagine what my childhood might have been without them in it.

Peter, my life-long, and best, friend, and I had the most difficult conversation this week. He has been diagnosed with ALS and it seems quite aggressive. What a terrible thing to hear. He is such an amazing man. He accomplished things that I have only dreamed of. He married his high school sweetheart and they have raised two phenomenally amazing children. I so respect what they have done together. When we talked on the phone this past week, we both cried. As I write this I cannot help again that the tears begin to flow. While I have struggled most of my adult life with Crohn’s and I have had some difficult periods, never have I been given such a terrible diagnosis. I wish I could take this from him. I feel so helpless and incapable at this point. I can only pray that whatever path he is on that he is allowed dignity and a minimum amount of pain. I cannot imagine what he faces, but I wish him comfort and some sense of how amazing he is. I had actually sent him a letter about a year and a quarter ago. I am so glad that I shared how important his friendship was to me.

As I try to finish my grading, I am also preparing a winter term class which actually begins in merely hours. There is so much to do and so little time, but that seems how my life is. The last few days I have found myself turning inward again. All too often I find that I am wanting to be around others and be involved in things, but then I find these times where I would be much happier alone. I am reminded that Lydia would get frustrated with me at times where I was always going or had things going on. She would say, in her Austrian accent, “My-chal! Is their anyone you don’t know?? It’s disgusting!!” Those of you who know her can hear her. I think I want to merely disappear for a while. While I do not think it can happen this week with 19 hours with the Skype interviews and other things at school, and then the holidays, maybe that will be my New Year’s resolution to become a hermit.

Well  . . .  with every ending there is a beginning and that is how the morning started. Thanks for reading.

Michael

Good morning,

So I had about four paragraphs written and I did something on my new tablet and lost the entire post. Even though it told me it had saved a draft, no such thing was true. Dammit!! I actually began this post last night when I was doing student conferences. I got all of a sentence or two written and then decided to call it a night and actually head home around 9:00 p.m., which was the earliest I have left campus this week. So I continued to write this morning and “poof” it all disappeared. I have done this a couple times with this new tablet and the touch pad mouse. I need to figure some things out. It is not only frustrating, it is not efficient. I am in Starbucks; the picture here is of me in a Starbucks in NYC.

In my last post, I noted that I am hanging on . . . at this point, I think that has changed. I think I am in free-fall (It just did it again and lost a couple more paragraphs!!). I am not sure where the fall will end or how far I will drop. I was speaking with a colleague the other day and lamented some of this. I pondered whether or not it was I was just giving too much work, expecting too much, or merely doing too much. The response was a simple “perhaps”. I have thought about that as I seem to be moving backwards rather than forward. I understand part of it is merely being in an English Department. There is no quick way to grade writing. In addition, with the difficulties I see in student writing, I am inclined to do conferences. While it takes time, the result of those conferences for the students makes those conferences invaluable. I also believe they are necessary because of the deficiencies that are so apparent in many students’ writing. From poor organization and development to failing to move beyond the first thing that comes to mind (i.e. no critical or analytical thinking); from lacking a process to being too lazy to employ the process; from a general lack of grammar or syntax knowledge to believing that such a knowledge is unnecessary, the needs of the students are “legion” to employ a biblical term. The use of that term might be appropriate in more ways than one.

Unfortunately, two weeks of struggling to overcome a sinus infection has had serious consequences. I am so far behind in my grading that I need to postpone some things. Out of fairness to my students, I cannot ask them to hand in more work when I have not provided adequate feedback on what they have already written. That being said, the next few days are going to be spent in front of the computer. I need about 96 hours of straight grading. It is my hope that I will be caught up by the end of next week. I have been asked if I have made my own personal trek to the Bloomsburg Fair, the yearly event where 100s of thousands people make a pilgrimage to eat bad food and ride on contraptions that might be scarier than the carni operating them. As you can see, I have a rather dubious view of the grand Bloomsburg gathering. I have gone at least once every year I have been here (with the exception of two years ago when it was flooded out), but I think that streak might go by the wayside this year.

All in all, let me end on a positive note. As a general statement, I am pleased with my fall students. Many of them seem engaged and sincere about their work. As I have been doing student conferences this week, I have read some nice work. There are some who need to work much harder, but for the most part, I think the vast majority are headed in a good direction. Well, before I lose this again, I am going to stop.

Thanks for reading.

Michael

Good morning from Starbucks in the Commons,

This semester I have all my office hours in coffee shops. While I have done part of my life that way (both in an out of school), it is not because of the coffee or other forms of caffeine that I spend what might seem to be an inordinate amount of time here, it is because I get a lot accomplished. They seem to be productive spaces for me. Back in Wisconsin (and surrounding area) there is a chain called #Caribou. I appreciate them for their commitment to the communities in which they live and their work toward using #fairtrade coffees. I did hear this past summer they were bought out and I need to check that out. I am always concerned when start-up companies get bought out. Sometimes their commitment to what got them started goes by the wayside.

While I seem to get a better response from students coming to see me, I am also able to get reading and work done. I sometimes put in earbuds (like now as I listen to Celtic Music), but even without them, I am able to block out most of the sound around me and just get work done. It has been that way since I was in graduate school. There is a whole string of coffee shops from #Motherlode (circa 1994) to my first stint in Starbucks when I left and went to the Detroit area, where I also had my introduction to Panera Bread (1999). There was the #Wide-Awake Coffee Bar (and #Uncle John’s Record Shop, which I first frequented in high school and I am not going to provide a date for that) in my hometown of Sioux City, IA. I went to Starbucks when I lived in Texas and then got back to the Upper Peninsula, where I finished my graduate work. There was a new coffee shop called the Cyberia Cafe (2000-2003). Moving to Menomonie in 2003 (amazing that it was 10 years ago this fall) I found a local coffee place directly across the street from Harvey Hall, but it closed. It was that October that Caribou came to Menomonie. I wrote the majority of my dissertation there. Now, as many here know, if you want to find me, hang out in the coffee shops and sooner or later, I will appear. Most likely, sooner.

I spend almost my entire weekend working on school things, and while I made a significant dent, what is coming seems overwhelming at the moment. I think the idea of full-time school is certainly understated at this point. However, I merely need to keep plugging away. I have been doing the reading I assigned my #Writing for the #Internet class and the eccosee text is really interesting to me because it forces me to rethink the idea of #rhetorical #analysis once again. I think the reason most students are less effective than they hope with their #writing or #designing or #communicating is because they fail to adequately analysis the rhetorical situation in which they are operating. I think my students probably get tired of hearing “audience” or “purpose” coming out of my mouth, but it is fundamental to good communication. Dobrin and Morey write that “the imagery of language is not a visual image” (eccosee 5). What an interesting statement. One, I think needs some unpacking. Yet we almost always seem to accompany words with images and I am not sure we separate them very carefully or intentionally. In fact, it seems that we are more dependent on that connection than ever before. As we have moved toward more and more electronic forms of communicating and with our ability to attach images to almost everything, we seldom see one without the other. I can attach photos to my texts (and often do) or my tweets, or now with Instagram, I take the picture first and add my description or my #s. Things for me to ponder in my classes and in my work.

Over the weekend, driving down Lightstreet, I saw the first really clear sign of fall. The sumac bushes along the road were bright red, orange, and yellow. It was beautiful, but it also reminded me of just how quickly the summer passed. Maybe I found myself in that place of #”brown study”, or at least perhaps I wish I was. I would have gotten more of my own writing done. It is amazing to me how already it seems like it is necessary to accomplish just what is on the list next to keep my nose above the waterline.

Finally, I guess I should comment on my title, one of my favorite holidays is Halloween and I need to start planning my work for the fall. I did get a number of things done last fall, but I want to take it to another level this Halloween. I did see a Halloween store had opened in the area. It might have to be a destination point soon. In the meanwhile, I think I will work on my classes, my other work, and have my Pumpkin muffin (yah!! Halloween rocks!).

Thanks for reading,

Michael (aka: Dr. Martin)

Good Morning from my class,

I am currently sitting in the back of my 9:00 a.m. #Foundations of College Writing course. As I do every semester, I have the #Bloomsburg Writing Center come to class and have them do this presentation for my course. What is evident, both from experience as well as research by the Writing Center director, #Dr. Ted Roggenbuck, many students do not have a very good handle on the ethical or correct use of sources. Most do not intentionally misuse a source, but their lack of understanding, particularly when it comes to paraphrase  or summary, results all too often in unintentional plagiarism. I always do this presentation at the beginning of he semester because I do want to move students beyond the understanding that served them all to well in high school. I am reminded of my own experience with a high school in the area. Those 12th grade students were told by their senior project advisor they did not need a works cited page on their projects. NOT GOOD!!!

I was actually pleasantly surprised in the first class and now in the second one (Yes, it is actually later as I continue to write this. I am now in my 11:00 a.m. Foundations course.), that students seem to be more honest about having some concerns about their writing and ability to use sources. There does seem to be an issue with clickers this morning, but I think we can still work with it. Actually, while I have heard this presentation many times, I always seem to learn something that I might find helpful. I think the point made this morning that most caught me by surprise was when the student presenter said, “If you do not understand the source, you should probably not be using it.” I guess I had not thought of that, but it is certainly a truism.

In addition this morning, I saw my summer student who had some health issues. It was good to catch up and give them a sense of what needs to be done to complete the course. This was a sad situation because I do believe the student is capable, but due to a number of issues, the student could not finish the course. This will, at the very least, allow from completion and receving credit for the summer class. This was a new experience for me here at this university, but because of my own health issues, I know how those issues can get in the way of life. Yet, one still needs to manage the assignments and the work.

We are headed into the Labor Day weekend. This is the traditional end of summer. What I am realizing is the summer flew by; in fact, I am not sure where it all went and how I feel like I somehow missed it. I wrote on my #Facebook page yesterday that we were four days into class and somehow I have ended up a week behind. I hope that is not a harbinger of the semester. Somehow, I am quite sure it might be the case. Yesterday someone asked me about the fall and the return to school. What I remember growing up is an excitement of being back in school. It is interesting the images that come to mind. I think the fall I most remember the excitement of school was in 1977 when I was a student at Iowa State University (#ISU). I still remember walking down Welch Avenue toward the campus and the sounds and smells of the fall. Autumn is certainly my favorite season. I so appreciate the cool nights and the warm afternoons. One of the things I have noticed this past week is how it has gotten significantly later before it is light outside and it is becoming darker much earlier. In fact, at least as far as the calendar, there are only three weeks of summer left, or in another way to think about it . . . we are half way to the shortest day of the year.

Well, I am very happpy for the three day weekend; it will be a catch up and get organized time. Hopefully, next week I will not feel quite as harried.

Thanks for reading,

Michael (aka: Dr. Martin)