Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies is an interesting book. On one hand it gives the reader an interesting place to discuss ethics and civics and how culture affects things. On the other hand, some elements of it are so predictable.

Today, though, the thing that interests me is that there is a game related to the book on the Nobel prize website.

http://nobelprize.org/literature/educational/golding/

The game, although fun, is pretty simplistic. I guess I find that ironic due to the website it's found on. If this game were found on a high school or junior high teacher resource page, I would understand it. But, the game is found on the Nobel Prize site. The Nobel prize asks more from its winners than just a simple plot, and yet all the game does is ask the player to match up symbols and answer really simplistic questions.

Now, I just need someone to create a game that simplifies literary theory. Match up the symbol with the theorist-- a couch for Freud, a magnifying glass for Derrida...

Thanksgiving and Composition

Write a 5 paragraph essay discussing why you're thankful.
Write a thank you note to someone for something they have done for you.
Write a narrative essay about a time you thought about being thankful.
Write why you're thankful to live in the United States/Canada/fill in the blank.
Write why your'e thankful you've had the opportunity to get to know _________.

Thanksgiving seems to be this time for stock journal writing topics. Not that we shouldn't take time to be thankful and think about the good things that are in our lives. It's easy to be critical and take simple things for granted-- I believe that. But, I don't think forcing everyone to write about it is the way to make it effective.

I think gratitude has to be a choice. We have to want to be thankful. As we approach the holidays, sometimes all we can say is "Daddy I want another pony." Maybe we should write about that-- oh wait, we do-- we write out Christmas lists and letters to Santa.

Tis the season for writing-- somehow though, it just doesn't seem right.

Intertextuality

I'm currently reading "Children's Literature comes of Age" and the last chapter is on intertextuality, and the author, Nikolajeva, discusses how intertextuality is different that comparative analysis. She says both look at works in juxtaposition, but that comparative literature looks more at influence and intertextuality looks more at meaning. However, then she proceeds to "do" intertextual criticism by looking at how books. meanings have influenced other books' meanings. I feel like something is missing.

If we really want to look at something in juxtaposition and we want to find similarities within the texts, it seems we should be able to do that with any types of texts. We shouldn't have to limit ourselves to genres that would have influenced themselves. For me, intertextuality should look like more of a hypertext connection. These two works that have nothing in common have so much in common because of this kenotype. But if something is a true kenotype then we have to compare works that wouldn't necessarily have had influence on one another. Sometimes I think influence is a point of connection, but with intertextuality, the newness results from how the connected items might be used differently through time. In Hansel and Gretel candy is used to draw the children to the wicked witch. In The Chocolate War, candy is used to symbolize the evil manipulative powers that be. It is no longer a "special" thing to see candy, but candy still works to manipulate behavior. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, candy manipulates behavior, but can we label Willie Wonka evil? Finally, in Harry Potter, candy is the symbol of Dumbeldore, the positive headmaster. This same symbol exists but it works differently-- Were any of these works influenced by others, possibly, but we don't see that influence as a model.

Tips for Successful Plagiarism

I know that some students are very successful at plagiarism, but some are quite lousy, so I thought I'd spend some time today to point out ways to improve at plagiarism.

1. If you are buying a paper, you should maybe take it to a tutoring center and have them help you revise it. This way you can make sure it has some of your voice. Although be sure not to tell the people at the center that you bought the paper-- that could come back to bite you in the butt. Also, make sure you know what the paper is saying before you take it to the center. If you don't understand it then they will know you bought it.

That leads me to point number 2.
2. Make sure you can understand the paper that you are turning in. If it uses words that you don't know, you should look them up. Sometimes a teacher will ask you what a word means that is used in the paper if he/she suspects that you're plagiarizing. If you know what all the words mean-- especially when they are subjects of whole paragraphs-- you are less apt to be suspected of cheating.

3. Make sure the assignment you turn in matches the assignment that was assigned. If you are supposed to turn in a cause and effect paper on a current event, you shouldn't turn in a cause and effect paper on the civil war. Any war that was fought over 100 years ago no longer qualifies as a current event. There are different ways to make sure your plagiarized work matches your actual assignment. You can pay or coerce someone into doing your homework for you. If he/she sees the assignment, then he'll know what to write. You can type the assignment into google. Sometimes if a school has a standardized curriculum, there are people from your school willing to sell old homework. Or you can look around to make sure that the paper you buy is close to the assignment.

3b. Point 3 is especially true when you are assigned summaries. If you plagiarize a summary, you want to double check that you are plagiarizing the correct work. Sometimes authors write works on similar themes, and it can become tricky to keep track of which story you are supposed to be looking at. Excerpts from stories can be problematic as well. You want to be sure that your summary does not include details from the longer work if you were only supposed to read the abbreviated form.

4. Make sure that there isn't too big of a jump in your writing style from assignments you have done yourself to assignments you are plagiarizing. The most effective plagiarism is done when all works are plagiarized from the same source, then you are less likely to be suspected. Although, unless you are paying someone to do your homework, it is difficult to maintain that sort of consistency. It is important that work you plagiarize sound like you. Otherwise, a teacher might request to see drafts so that he/she can believe that your writing has actually improved that much vs. it being what it is, plagiarism.

Well, I know there are probably other tips out there, but I thought these would get you started.

Happy Cheating, and if you get caught-- you deserve it.

Innovation

As teachers, I think we all strive to be innovative in some way. We want our class to stand out as something interesting. Yet sometimes, innovation is met with resistance. Students who do not know what to do with choice. I'm a big advocate for choice-- you can do this or that. You can present your information this way or that way. Selfishly, I do this for me. I can't stand reading 20-50 versions of the same paper on the same topic. So, I give students choice. But, I am finding that choice demands more instruction. I have to explain all sorts of scenarios-- but then that takes away from innovation. I don't want to imagine out the scenario for you-- I want you to imagine up a scenario for me.

I think innovation is important. I think showing students that the traditional way isn't the only way is valuable. I also think choice is important. So, I guess I need to accept the complications that occur through the process.

Collaboration

Collaboration is an interesting thing. This weekend I was working on a collaborative project with friends, and we were discussing how much better the work that we were doing becomes when we gather input from others than when we simply work alone.

This made me begin to think about syllabus design. This winter I'm teaching a service learning course, and I believe that part of service learning comes from the discussions of what we learn. This is making me think about restructuring my syllabus-- I think I want to have my students do their service in pairs.

I still believe it is important to have some individual work in a composition classroom, and I know that some students really despise group work. Yet, I think that if they have a partner throughout for their service project that they will be able to understand the project more fully. I also think it will build up their security in working in a service environment to have someone with them rather than attempting to conquer it all alone.

Maybe I should talk with someone about this.

Audience and Argument

This morning I was talking with my students about argument, and we began to discuss audience, and the more I think about it, the more relevant to everything it seems.

This morning I woke up to discover that Detroit reelected its mayor yesterday. I'm not sure I think that the best move, but I am not actually a city resident, so I didn't get to vote. I don't know that it's the worst move, but I know it means things won't change. The reason I think about this in connection with audience is I can't help but wonder who campaign ads were geared towards. It seemed at the end that it became an issue of electing the lesser of 2 evils. Logical reasoning got brushed aside by both parties, and that disheartens me.

Argument becomes this vague ideal that allows people to prove points effectively, and marketing departments have taken away any necessary appeals to logic and apply only to desire and emotion. So, this makes me wonder how to convey the importance of logic to students. How do I demonstrate to students the necessity of logic when everything around them dictates that logic just doesn't matter any more. I guess we apply logic to advertisements. Why do marketing execs know that they will get more business by appealing to emotion?

Syllabus and adventure

There are several things that I really enjoy about teaching. I enjoy working with students. I enjoy discussing ideas and seeing where those discussions might lead. I enjoy helping people see things from a different perspective than what they might be used to. But there are a couple of things I don't enjoy about teaching-- grading papers and writing a syllabus.

Syllabus writing is a funny thing-- initially it's exciting-- you can try new ideas out and see how you want them to go together. But then, it's overwhelming-- planning the entire semester at once opens up a lot of possibilities-- what if the students want to do this or that.

When I was a kid, there were choose your own adventure books. If you want Amy to stay on the island go to page 55. If you want Amy to try to swim off the island turn to page 110. Now, with hypertext, choose your own adventure becomes a click vs. a turn. The reader has to just go to the new place; he/she can't read all of the options and choose the best one after the fact.

This makes me wish I could write a choose your own adventure syllabus. If you want to do a project on literacy, click here, and the page opens up to the assignment that the student would do-- read something-- create an ethnography. If you want to do a project on culture, click here, and the page opens up to an assignment about television-- watch this-- read that-- write a script for a news segment on how television portrays American culture. Do you just want an easy A with no work-- that page opens up to an error message-- page not available.

But, we don't write choose your own adventure syllabi-- instead we put the disclaimer at the top that we, the teacher, maintain the right to amend the syllabus at any given moment-- and most of the time, because we don't want to do the planning involved, keep the syllabus the same. Sometimes we learn something new in the course of the semester-- or something really important happens-- and we change it up. So I guess we choose the adventure.

Freak the Mighty

Rod Philbrick's book Freak the Mighty took me a little by surprise, although I don't know that it should have.

Young adult coming of age fiction seems to be always either circular or linear. Either normalcy is returned or a journey begins. In Freak, both and neither happen. Max is the character who achieves a coming of age, and while he is at home throughout the majority of the text, his return to school and "normal" would make it seem to be a circular journey. But, Max is anything but normal at the end of the text. He is doing things that he would have never done before; he is beginning to learn things for himself. He has made a linear journey. But then, this is a coming of age text-- of course he has made a discovery about himself. If he hadn't, then the story wouldn't accomplish anything. One difference in this text is that Max's physical journey in no way parallels his psychological journey, and that confounds typical labels. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy must make a physical journey while she is discovering herself-- therefore, her journey is circular. Max on the other hand, always needs someone else's help to make any type of physical journey in the text. Freak tells him where to go while they are Freak the Mighty-- His dad tells him where to go when he is being kidnapped, and Freak is the one who saves him from a near death experience. Although Max is taking a journey with Freak, it isn't until Freak dies that Max truly matures. So, I guess if I have to choose a label, this text has a linear journey. The reader knows that Max has turned a corner and is ready to go on a quest, but the reader isn't sure if Max will successfully complete his quest alone.