Stratofanatic's Emporium

I'm a big believer in using data to improve teaching, and, having just finished the midterm for my World-building class, ENGL 178 , I was curious to see, among other things, how much of the assigned reading my students did. So I created an anonymous survey. Here are some results. So this .... wasn't quite as bad as I feared, actually. According to one study, only about 20-30% students do the required reading . My students did a good deal better than that. Now, granted, there's a selection bias here. Only students who attended class today took the survey, and one might suppose non-attenders would, on the whole, tend to be non-readers as well. So I'll mentally subtract 10% from each book. At the same, my linked study studies a different population ("hospitality and tourism" majors), and I don't know how that would compare to students taking a 100-level General Education course. DISCUSSION Some positive results. Out of 65 respondents, 72% read The Hobbit. To ...

If I haven't mentioned it before, my 100-seat General Education course on world-building is going gang-busters. For my opening day, I created an awesome opening sequence , based on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey , using Adobe Premier Pro, and afterwards this adorable little fella became my course mascot. But before having my students start creating their Legendarium artifacts in Module 2, however, we're doing a cultural history of dragons and elves in Module 1. The basic idea is  (a) they're both really cool, and  (b) since most artists model their imaginary worlds on real-world history and cultures, we follow suit with the same -- basically, source studies into several medieval traditions. Well, in preparation for talking about Dragons in particular (to which I owe Daniel Ogden's fantastically thorough book, Dragons in the West , a debt), I had my students take a survey on the dragons they knew best.  The results out of 85 respondents: Toothless – 96% Smaug – 76% ...

I don't often talk about writing pedagogy here, but given that most of my teaching is for Writing Program classes, and that my professionalization is continually ongoing, I've obviously developed many, many views on the theory and practice of writing, especially in Writing Programs. Anyway, we've recently devised the draft for a "values statement," and it's loaded with words like compassion, autonomy , equity , inclusion , and curiosity . The whole thing made me roll my eyes, and in response to this draft, I presented my objections to the entire statement in the following manner ----------------------- So .... I'll be honest. I absolutely hate this statement. The bolded words [ compassion, autonomy ,  equity ,  inclusion , and  curiosity]  are a simple list of abstract-noun buzzwords, and although I have no real objections to any word in particular (for example, what rational person would reject autonomy?), that is largely because each buzzword is so vague...

So, reading through my first-time course evals for ENG 373A. In general, I'm satisfied with them. As per usual, students found my energy and style especially appealing, and they also gave high marks to accessibility and ability to make material interesting. Nobody complained about unclear expectations. Overall, the commentary was quite positive, and several students self-reported enjoying the course highly. The complaints were also pretty standard. I still talk too fast. Unlike my freshmen course on Monsters, however, there were almost no complaints about "too much work." Still, several people offered the standard complaint about "harsh grading." (This remark, which also tanks my ratemyprofessor score, continues to confound me, as 70% of my students got A's or B's. Historically, I'm pretty sure at least some of these complainers have actually gotten A's in the course overall. I struggle to come up with an explanation that don't sound like an ...

So, here are the dangers of pedagogy when you're teaching a subject area outside of your field of professional study AND don't much care about proper pronunciation:  Within the last week in ENGL 373a, my Beowulf to Milton class, my students have (kindly) corrected my pronunciations on the following: (Southwark (apparently it's "south-verk," not "south-wark" -- this one was particularly embarrassing because I had just told them that the Thames is pronounced "Tems," not "Thames"!) Boccaccio ("boc-ca-cho", not "bo-ca-chi-o")! Scheherazade ("sche-her-a-zaud," not "sche-zhur-zaw-de")! And then! We were discussing the Hundred Years War for Chaucer, and somebody asked me if that was when Joan of Arc lived. I answered with an intelligent, "Um," because I honestly didn't know.  I'm so lucky my students seem to like me, cuz oh man, if they didn't .....

Finally completed -- every single lesson plan for the Brit Lit I (Beowulf to Milton) course I'm teaching this fall. ... although technically, it's called "British and American Literature: From Beowulf to 1660." Anyway, there's 31,000 words of text in the document, plus one detailed PowerPoint to help explain the Gael/Briton/ Celtic/Anglo-Saxon thing (something that's always perplexed me about early British history), and of course all my quizzes set-up in D2L. Normally, working this far ahead seems crazy to me, but the subject matter is still unfamiliar enough that I decided to forego the standard week-by-week route .... and, honestly, I needed to see the shape of my entire course before even finalizing a reading list. I never imagined that I would need three weeks for Chaucer, for instance .... I'm truly amazed, though, at some of the possibilities created by this course's parameters. For instance, the combination of British and American literature in ...

I've taught the online version of my Monsters, Ghosts, Aliens, and Others class so often now that I rarely, if ever, check my end-of-semester evaluations. Well, I randomly did this time around, and there's a few gems: "Cut back on the homework! You shouldn't expect me to work 18-24 hours a week on this class." Well, technically it's the University of Arizona that expects that .... "Three due dates per week is too much" (several variations on this) A case can be made for this, granted, but the problem is that, if I reduce the course to two due dates per week, that means each due date is 9-12 hours per work, and the procrastinators will mostly fail. So it's a pick your poison scenario, alas. "How we were regarded as students seemed more personal than my previous classes. Which was a positive aspect for sure." Well, thank you, student! I do try to be a friendly, enthusiastic sort. "I truly think Dr. Wise is my favorite professor I...

So, I received an email out of the blue today from Dr. Donald "Mack" Hassler, a former editor of Extrapolation,  a prolific critic within SF Studies, and also my Honors thesis advisor at Kent State University back in .... let's say, 2005-2006 it must have been, so fifteen years ago. Anyway, he had just seen my recent article in Extrapolation about Poul Anderson's poetry, and dropped me a line.  Here's part of what he said: The new issue of Extrap just got to me in the mail, and I am delighted to see the new long piece by you.  Also, I see that you are now Director of Undergrad Studies in Arizona. I remember the old days in the Honors College so well and am very proud of how you are moving in the profession. He was a good advisor, too -- gave me free reign to do what I want, and very patient. If I remember right, after a summer of working on my thesis** alone, I then handed him a 100-page mess in September, un-proofread, with comments like "INSERT EVIDENCE HE...

Ah, good news. My general education course, ENGL 160D: Nonhuman Subjects: Monsters, Ghosts, Aliens, and Others , has now been designated as meeting Quality Matters Internal Review Standards for online course design excellence. I don't get nothing for it, but it's a nice little perk. The designation is also a total bear to get -- besides doing a two-week online training earlier this summer on how to apply the QM rubric, the rubric is just a bastard to actually apply. There's 42 criteria, many of them involving "aligning" your course content with course-level and module-level Student Learning Outcomes, and much of it is admin-centered rather than student-centered. (That is, students never care or read these SLOs, but they're useful from an admin perspective.) If you miss even one of the essential criteria, you have to revise the course. Luckily, despite a 25-page review document, I only missed one of the 42 criteria, so revision wasn't that bad. All in all, ...

Well! I applied for -- and received -- a preceptorship from the U of A Writing Program to help train and mentor incoming graduate students, who will teach English 101 and English 102 online. Initially, I didn't even think of applying. More than enough things currently on my plate, you know, including teaching sections of Honors module for incoming freshman in the Fall, but I applied when our WP director suggested the idea to me. Overall, since our GTAs will be teaching the program's pre-designed online courses, which I know inside and out, I was pretty sure that I'd get the position. Still, it's quite nice . . . and I'm slowly growing more excited about the prospect.** So, for the rest of August, I'll help prepare our Orientation Week for graduate teaching assistants -- the first time, in fact, I've ever been on the other side of one of these things. Teaching everything through Zoom, though, is disappointing. I'd love the energy of meeting all our ne...

Rough day yesterday over here at the University of Arizona. The numbers are still in flux, but non-renewal letters went out to around 36 of our 54 faculty in the English Department's Writing Program. All of us were lecturers, all contingent labor. Since fourteen of the people retained were on multi-year contracts (a right instituted just two years ago for promoted faculty), this means that only four out of 38 faculty on the chopping block didn't receive a non-renewal letter. Luckily, I was one of them . . . but only because I teach a really popular online Gen. Ed. course on Monsters, Ghosts, and Aliens whose budget comes from UA online rather than our Writing Program. If enrollment projections increase by the end of the summer, a few of our non-renewed faculty might get offers. But still, not many. Although we had been expecting the worst for weeks, the reality of the layoffs is still a sucker-punch to the gut. EDIT on 6-3-2020 -- the final tally is on: 29 of 54 lecturers w...

So, I've been avoided posting about the troubles faced by the University of Arizona. Already coming into this semester, we knew our particular college (Social and Behavioral Sciences) was going to a $5 or $6 million dollar shortfall . . . and then coronavirus hit. Given that the U of A receives about half of its tuition dollars from out-of-state and international students, whose enrollments are predicted to decline precipitously for Fall 2020 the university is obviously in dire financial straits. To address this situation, upper admin is  (A) introducing mandatory furloughs on all employees of at least 10%. Since teachers are not allowed to let the quality of their teaching suffer, faculty whose jobs consist entirely of teaching (like us lecturers) are basically being given "pay cuts", a phrase admin is apparently reluctant to use. (B) A hiring freeze, and offering admission to fewer potential graduate students. (C) Increased course caps for Writing Program cour...

So, last spring, I was given a development grant to convert my ENGL 160D course on Monsters, Ghosts, Aliens, and Others to an online version. I'd just begun teaching online the previous semester, so while I grasped the basics, teaching literature is still a vastly different kettle of fish from teaching composition. Thankfully, I had my lesson plans from my face-to-face course, and some D2L content carried over. Anyway, I finished Monsters Online yesterday -- one whole day to spare, even, before classes begin on Thursday. All told, my best guess-timation puts my total work on the course anywhere between 110 and 120 hours . . . or about $25 per hour, given the development grant was a flat $3k. All that work  came in about 13 or 14 days of effort (the last seven of them in one brutal yet continuous stretch), so I didn't miss out on too much "real" academic work, i.e. research and writing.  Would I do another online course? Sure, if asked. But mad respect to those ...

Part of my job description is service -- specifically, service activities are 20% of what an U of A lecturer should be doing with their time. Well, I've just finished putting together my 2018 APR (Annual Performance Review), including the service component. I ended up with a score of 38. To put that number into context, the score range is 1 through 5 -- a five being "exceptional." So I think I got service covered here. Incidentally, since there's no official research component to my job, my research technically counts as "service" -- hence the score. At any rate, I'm including my list here for the morbidly curious. Service points earned: ___ 38 ____________ Publications (3) Article : “ Paul Edwin Zimmer’s Alliterative Style : A Metrical Legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien and Poul Anderson.” Mythlore , vol. 37, no. 1, 2018, pp. 183-201, 2018. (3) Article : “Identity, Time, and Faerie in Pig Tale and The Inn at Corbies’ Caww : An Unexpected Converge...

From the interview I posted about a few weeks ago, the podcast(s) has gone up. The first is a mini-podcast (only 6 minutes) on " Violence and Ghosts ." The second is the first official full-length "true crimes" episode of Wildcat Crimes : " The Myths, Legends and Crimes Behind the Haunting of Maricopa Hall " -- i.e., one of the local all-female resident dorms. I appear at the 22-minute and 34-minute marks. I'm a bit embarrassed about my first answer in the full-length episode . . . the question about ghosts and women, and I answered with the old tradition about women being less rational and more emotional than men. That's true as far as it goes, but I could have mentioned the concept of transgressed gender roles and the idea of the "monstrous feminine." Plus I'm a horrible speaker. Alas. . .  still a fun experience, though.

So, one of the local U of A media students is doing a podcast on true crime, and her first episodes is on "ghosts." She asked for an interview after noticing that I was teaching a course on monsters, and of course I was delighted to participate. Just finished up now. Since she set me a list of pre-set questions, I'm just going to post them here -- fun stuff! Firstly, have you heard of the Maricopa Hall haunting, and if so what have you heard? Oh yes, sure I have. I actually first heard about the haunting of the Modern Language Building, because that’s where the English Department is. Then when I was prepping for my Monsters class this semester, I googled haunted U of A buildings and found some websites on things like Maricopa Hall haunting. The websites didn’t strike me as the most reliable things in the world, but there’s various stories for Maricopa Hall.  (a wealthy young female U of A student who committed suicide when she found out her future husb...