Author: jelizabeth
– If you teach
… you may be interested in this short article, written by me and friend & colleague Lowry Pei and published this week in Tomorrow’s Professor. It’s on ways to use informal writing and peer response in any class you teach, in any discipline.
Excerpt, “Ways to Teach Peer Writing and Response“:
Writing’s role in critical thinking and learning has been well documented, and it has important social and pedagogical functions as well. Collaborative writing and peer responding helps to create the network of relationships that makes a class succeed. Informal writing and small group work varies the classroom experience and transfers more responsibility to students. Even in large lecture courses, in-class writing and response time fosters ideas, problem-solving, and playfulness and makes a space for everyone to say something to someone. From our own practices and from colleagues’ across the disciplines, we’ve assembled a kit of basic principles and tested exercises that could help teachers consolidate and improve the ways they teach peer writing and response in any course, with any size class, at any level of student mastery.
This one — like another piece on teaching writing we published in October 2007 — also goes to eleven.
– What are you letting go?
On Saturday night in Berkeley, after trying (without reservations) to eat at Chez Panisse (the upstairs, less expensive café part), Betsy and I walked along the block for a while before deciding on Café Gratitude, a raw food vegan restaurant that practices sacred commerce.
Our young server, Natalie, with her bangs and long black braid, bright eyes blackly lined, and pink glossed lips, gave us a tour of the menu and recited a bit of Gratitude’s history. Before she left us to ponder food choices, she asked us the question of the day: “What are you letting go?” Natalie opened her hands, palms up.
Betsy replied with her own question: “Do you want us to answer you… ?”
I interjected, “—or just think about it?”
Natalie seemed to take a step away. “Whatever you want,” she said and continued to smile. “I’ll be back.” As she walked off, I noticed she wore cool black boots with her black clothes. Continue reading
– Mother/daughter moments
1.
Our upstairs bathroom, early in the day. Jane leans over sink, face close to mirror. Lydia stands nearby.
Lydia: Since when did you wear mascara?
Jane: Since Adam’s Bar Mitzvah.
Lydia rolls her eyes as a first response. Jane keeps doing what she’s doing.
Lydia: Um, why?
Jane: So I look more alert.
Lydia widens her eyes, narrows them, and breathes out loudly. She exits.
2.
Two chairs in a waiting room, late afternoon. Jane and Lydia leaf through old copies of People and Prevention.
Jane: Aren’t you glad your mother doesn’t dye her hair in three shades? She points at a picture on a magazine cover.
Lydia: Who’s that?
Jane: Wynonna Judd.
Lydia (looks at Jane, looks at picture, looks at Jane): Oh, yeah.
– Dehumanized
Yesterday I graded papers at my dining room table all day, and then last night too. I had to push myself: it’s a special challenge to stay motivated and energized lately about teaching tasks that are difficult even in normal times. (And these are not. As one of my MIT colleagues wrote to me recently in an e-mail about layoffs, “Stupid economy.”)
Same thing this morning — pushed self up and out of bed at 6am to make a worksheet for a peer review exercise. Left house at 7:30am to give Eli a ride to his early class and then head to campus myself.
On the way, I listened to the radio station already on: WBUR, the local NPR affiliate. News, news, news. As I pulled into the parking lot, this story by Carey Goldberg came on. In her own voice, she describes getting laid off from the Boston Globe, where she was a part-time science writer, and she reflects on how paradoxically painful it was to hear her boss and colleagues say, “It wasn’t you.” We like you. Continue reading
– Reading comprehension: the joy and the pain
It’s MCAS season, and all three of our children — a 3rd grader, a 7th grader, and a high school sophomore — are taking them. They seem unbothered by a few days of testing: Lydia announced, “They don’t matter,” and Grace said, “No homework this week!” Eli is his usual cool and collected self and has altered his behavior only a little, to get the recommended good night’s sleep.
This morning Grace emptied out her school bag from Friday, and after they all left the house — I’m grading papers at home today — I looked at the worksheets from last week. There must have been 25 of them. (I would say that the idea of a Paperless Classroom has been about as successful as the idea of the Paperless Office.) I was completely riveted — and I am not kidding — by one of the reading comprehension worksheets from the MCAS review curriculum.
It’s a social history piece, written by children’s book author Lucille Recht Penner and called “Don’t Throw Your Bones on the Floor,” on the Pilgrims and their manners. Here are some good (wonderfully disgusting) facts, verbatim: Continue reading
– More or less functional
Many years ago, some Kokernak family conversation was being had, and this exchange between my father and my sister Emily occurred:
Dad: Do you think our family is dysfunctional?
Emily: Well… it’s more or less functional.
I don’t remember which function was the topic of concern (perhaps all the times my father threatened, when we were misbehaving in the car, to pull over and make us run alongside?) or if that’s exactly what Emily said (perhaps she said, “Like most families, we’re more or less functional.”) or even if I was there (perhaps I was only told of this exchange, and my imagination promptly filmed it and added it to the memory storehouse). However, I have long considered Em’s comment brilliant.
And two days ago her comment returned to me, when I realized suddenly how it applies to my family, the one I live with. Continue reading
– “Laugh at perfection.”
I love this: The Cult of Done Manifesto.
– Free advice for the would-be freelancer
A year ago, my friend and fellow teacher, Lauren, wrote and asked me for advice on establishing herself as a freelance editor. She recalled that I had worked for a while as a freelance… something. Indeed, from 1994 to 2003 I worked independently as a writer and researcher for nonprofit organizations.
Lauren liked my advice, and I believe she put some of it into practice. I dug it out today, after I found myself talking near the photocopy machine to another teacher about the many ways to make a living. When you’re in education, it seems, it’s not enough to have just one way; you must have supplementary ways.
Here’s the advice, copied and pasted verbatim from my e-mail archives. If you’re looking to make some money with words, this might help you on your way. And if you have any suggestions to add or even corrections to make, please comment on the post or write to me directly.
Jane’s Guide to Getting Started as a Freelancer
1 — For yourself, figure out what [editing, writing, coaching, etc.] services you’ll offer and who your client might be. Figure out what you’ll charge — look at mediabistro.com to see what industry standards are, and keep in mind that you won’t get paid for every minute you work (about 1/3 of your time is spent on getting gigs and dealing with the client and paperwork).
2 – Establish some sort of visible presence in the world. A website is probably how you would do it now, but when I started in ’94 I had a brochure. On it, I would include a brief bio of yourself that establishes your credibility (regarding the service you’re offering), a description of your services, and a statement about what separates you from the pack. Continue reading
– A begat
This half-pound bag of Blue Bottle Coffee is a begat.
According to my father-in-law Ed, who knows a bit of Yiddish, many things that are bought may fit into the category he calls “begat.” And even though “begat” begins its life as a verb — beget, which means to sire or cause to exist — here it’s used, in its past tense, as a noun. Most simply put, a begat is a purchase that begets another purchase. Like, the new couch that begets the purchase of a new area rug. (Indeed, according to Ed, a new couch is the classic begat.)
Sometimes, we make purchases so innocently: “Oh, all I need is a chair for this corner, and then the room will be complete.” A day after the chair arrives, we find ourselves pacing the aisles of Home Goods, looking for a few pillows that will “tie in” the new chair to the old furniture. The new pillows, in turn, may function as a begat and lead to a new lump of pottery on the table. Which could make us rethink the floor lamp in the corner. The new lamp is an opportunity to try the innovative, energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs. Why not buy a dozen? And so on and on and on.
Back to the meager bag of coffee. Continue reading
leaf stitch word 