tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-149216802023-03-21T12:13:05.220-07:00Here I am. Naked of my pride. What lies within are my experiences, observations, successes, and failures as a college composition instructor. What I hope to learn from them is this: (1) I am human, (2) I make mistakes, and (3) I can learn from them.miss jackiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1158090205058431482006-09-12T12:19:00.000-07:002006-09-12T15:44:09.510-07:00

It seems like I have been nagged about this for months.Since school began, everytime that I'd walk by the department office, the division secretary and the division secretary's secretary would nag, sometimes in unison, "Did you get your package yet?" or "Did you give shipping and receiving a call?"What are they talking about?I wasn't interested in getting more junk mail from textbook publishers.

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1140572251488368952006-02-21T17:32:00.000-08:002006-02-21T17:37:31.503-08:00

Let's make this official -- this blog's on hiatus. I will post again in April!

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1134026342991403222005-12-07T23:03:00.000-08:002005-12-08T00:00:02.633-08:00

I suck.My Modal Confusion mantra is:Here I am. Naked of my pride. What lies within are my experiences, observations, successes, and failures as a college composition instructor. What I hope to learn from them is this: (1) I am human, (2) I make mistakes, and (3) I can learn from them.Well, I made some mistakes this semester. Now it's time for me to call 'em out. If I don't, how can I so-called "

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1133630917783797202005-12-03T09:28:00.000-08:002005-12-03T09:28:38.036-08:00

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1133250999646512512005-11-28T23:49:00.000-08:002005-11-29T00:40:41.336-08:00

I would get paid at least 2x as much.I could arrive and leave at my leisure, so long as I get my time in.Two words and one exclamation point: Happy Hour!I won't have to grade any more damn papers.I won't have to listen to any dumb excuses.I won't have to worry about putting my 3-5 years in before being taken seriously.In contrast:I would be respected.I would be sought out.I would be given pay

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1133104768734372892005-11-27T07:16:00.000-08:002005-11-27T07:38:56.960-08:00

This past Thanksgiving I was reminded of an ole saying of my Grandmother’s, a saying that she kept close to her heart and on a pot holder in her kitchen: “I had six theories about how to raise children. Now I have six children and no theories.” That’s how I feel about my “children,” my students.Like all parents, I thought/think that I have the best children – that they are the most well-behaved,

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1133220334696948892005-11-25T12:34:00.000-08:002005-11-28T15:33:21.026-08:00

Mr. Miyagi died today. Well, technically, Pat Morita died today, the actor who played the “wise and dry-witted” Mr. Miyagi in the 80’s classic Karate Kid starring then-rising-teen-actor (who never really rose), Ralph Macchio.For those who know me well (I mean really well), you know that I am a big fan of the Karate Kid. I didn’t really know it until just a few years ago, when the age gap between

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1132785586563786542005-11-23T14:27:00.000-08:002005-11-23T22:28:39.486-08:00

I wrote this little piece, a Sincerely Yours letter, about one of my favorite subjects as of late -- my face (see also part II) -- as a collection of several different writing strategies and sentence variety techniques that I would like for the students in my developmental writing class to develop for their next piece -- a proposal essay.The first step in writing this essay is to write a Peter

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1132195349024759492005-11-16T18:27:00.000-08:002005-11-16T19:02:40.870-08:00

As a gumshoe teacher, I have my good days and bad days. Some days, I just feel like an imposter, like a contestant on that show Faking It.This week on Faking It, Miss Jackie, a total bullshitter, tries to get a class full of freshman composition students to believe that she really is a legitimate composition professor!Seriously, that's how I feel sometimes. The longer I teach, the more

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1131500473124019672005-11-08T17:39:00.000-08:002005-11-09T12:49:49.503-08:00

Sometimes what you most don’t want to hear is what you need to hear the most.The beauty of having a spouse (or significant other in my case) is that you have someone who can be straight with you, someone who can look you in the eye and challenge you, and challenge you in such a way that you didn’t want to be challenged, but needed to be challenged.The person doing this has to be someone that you

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1130011378822345222005-10-22T13:02:00.000-07:002005-10-22T13:02:58.840-07:00

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1129572000985160722005-10-17T10:58:00.000-07:002005-10-17T11:01:11.756-07:00

I stumbled across this gem in an email forward.

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1129077595360224222005-10-11T17:21:00.000-07:002005-10-11T18:14:04.796-07:00

Plagiarizing is a piece of cake!Especially if the assignment is to summarize an article in your own words! (Ha!)Just follow these easy steps and then just sit back, relax, and wait for your “A"! You earned it!How to Plagiarize:Find an article to “summarize.” (Yeah right! As if you are actually going to "summarize" it. You know better than that!)Highlight five to seven key sentences. (Don't

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1128580769028772712005-10-05T23:37:00.000-07:002005-10-05T23:41:20.606-07:00

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1127890361596939822005-09-27T23:22:00.000-07:002005-09-28T00:14:13.406-07:00

Ironically, in the midst of procrastinating yesterday, I got something done -- the entire semester-long course schedule for my freshman composition class.What a relief! What a sweet relief. My time has come.So you may be asking yourself or me, more appropriately -- Miss Jackie, shouldn't that have been done a long time ago?Well ... it's a long story.The short of it is this:Since I began teaching

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1127357732650188722005-09-21T19:38:00.000-07:002005-09-22T00:44:20.316-07:00

Today a student cried.It wasn't that bawh-ha-ha kind of uncontrollable crying.It was that kind of crying that I do ... the kind of crying that no matter what how hard you try, a tear unexpectedly wells up in your eye and rolls down your check defying you and every intention that you had of not crying, of not being a crier.It was the kind of crying that causes you to look up, look away, look

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1127188780798649042005-09-19T20:18:00.000-07:002005-09-19T21:36:37.106-07:00

Today, my developmental writing class took a timed writing exam. It is week four.They took a diagnostic exam in week one, which was just like the exam they took today (perhaps a little harder), and since then we have been working specifically on timed writing strategies. That was less than three weeks ago.Teaching timed writing is no fun. It's no fun for me. It's no fun for the students. But

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1126752686864880102005-09-14T19:40:00.000-07:002005-09-14T20:00:06.123-07:00

Q: What student writes:Despite their image as leafy enclaves of higher learning shielded from the real world, universities across the United States are finding themselves on the front lines of the battle against identity theft.A: No student does. Reuters does.I cannot believe it! I am so angry. I typed the phrase into an internet search engine and there was her "summary" ... verbatim.A student

Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1126566487478499652005-09-09T13:42:00.000-07:002005-09-12T16:25:03.606-07:00

As soon as I got admitted into graduate school, I applied for a TA (teaching associate) position at the university.At the CSU (all CSUs for the matter), there is a timed writing exam that all students must pass in addition to fulfilling their degree requirements in order to obtain their degree. The 75-minute timed writing exam – in theory – is looking for students to demonstrate a solid

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1126067446074253132005-09-06T21:16:00.000-07:002005-09-06T21:40:45.280-07:00

I am in mid paper-a-thon here and so far I have come across this same phrase so many times now that I am starting to wonder if I am becoming delirious:"Do you understand what I am trying to say?" they ask. This seems to be the number one question that I get on the reflective writing pieces that my students submit with each timed writing exam and paper."Yes," I reply in more ways than one. "I do

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1126041721018593342005-09-06T14:19:00.000-07:002005-09-06T14:22:01.023-07:00

I found this comic by Close to Home a little bit, well, close to home.

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1125542487976922582005-08-31T19:19:00.000-07:002005-08-31T19:55:21.816-07:00

I couldn't help but notice in class yesterday that I had a disproportionate number of male students. Of the 30 students in class, 20 of them were male.This got me thinking: Is this an anomaly or is this the same case in my other class and I just haven't noticed it?Quickly, I began to worry about the impact of the tight clothes and thong comment that I found on a teacher-review website earlier

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1125538841688849152005-08-31T18:38:00.000-07:002005-08-31T19:07:37.953-07:00

As the new school year begins, I begin to recall the sage advice that a longtime teacher passed onto me that another longtime teacher had passed onto her: "Remember, they's your bitches!"There's infinite wisdom in that simple phrase.Novice teachers just can't help but want to do everything for their students. Students are all lost looking and starry-eyed during the first week of school. You just

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1122675974249667912005-07-29T15:25:00.000-07:002005-07-29T15:28:18.886-07:00

Sometimes I purposely put a lower grade on a student's paper and then cross it out and put a slightly higher one next to it. I like to make them sweat it a little. They seem more appreciative of the grade. More importantly, it keeps them motivated knowing that they just barely made it.

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14921680.post-1122655111701628652005-07-29T09:17:00.000-07:002005-08-05T01:40:33.496-07:00

I finally gave Modal Confusion the facelift and personal touch that it deserved. No longer shall it suffer under the dictatorship of Losing My Mind, whose template had the tendency to override any customizing that I had done for Modal Confusion. I guess it was jealous of my "new" blog.After a few unconclusive e-mails from Blogger support and consequential months of toiling over this decision, I

Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17877661117956026977noreply@blogger.com1