Dr. Cox's Desk

Do You Really Wanna Grade That? Practical Questions for Assignment Design

When I was in 8th grade, my English Teacher assigned a research paper. I think it was only 5-8 pages, honestly. I can’t remember the exact numbers. It was, though, the longest research paper any of us had written for a class up to that point, and the class was, in a word, shook. On the day it was due, the entire class was complaining to each other and trying to beg her to call the whole assignment off, mostly with the argument that it was simply too arduous for 8th graders—honors 8th graders, I might add.

I was not immune to the complaining. But I, ever the little rhetorician, realized that surely Mrs. Nemoto, who had been teaching for literal decades I’m sure, had heard all our self-interested arguments before, and they simply wouldn’t work. Instead, I took a moment to calculate what her perspective on the matter must be and how I might appeal to her needs and desires.

I can’t remember the exact math, but let’s do some basic math on grading. Mrs. Nemoto was a normal middle school teacher; she had one prep period out of six in a day. So, five sections. Let’s assume 30 students in each section. 150 students. Let’s assume it was a minimum five page paper, which means at least 750 pages.

It being 2000 or so, the fourth Harry Potter book was all over the place, so I used that as my benchmark. It also clocks in at about 750 pages. So I used that as my reference point. So by my calculations, she was reading about the equivalent of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In poorly written 8th grade research. In one night.

That’s right. I don’t know how Mrs. Nemoto did it, but she always returned our work the next day. Graded and with at least a sentence of comment. She seemed tired on those days, but somehow that sainted woman could do it. I’m happy if I can return papers back in two weeks.

So, armed with my math and my newfound awe of Mrs. Nemoto, I went up to her desk with my paper in hand. “You do realize,” I said, “that you’re reading more than the fourth Harry Potter book in poorly written essays. Why would you do that to yourself?”

Mrs. Nemoto smiled. “I’m a masochist,” she said simply.

I returned her smile. “Then here’s my paper,” I answered, handing her the paper. “Have fun!”

Now, as an English teacher myself, I return often to that conversation. I was in awe of her reading abilities then, but my years of teaching writing have only increased my awe. But I also often return to the idea that being a successful English teacher requires, at some level, a degree of masochism.

So what does this mean for assignment design?

We often think about what will be best practice for the students’ learning when we design assignments. How much do they have to produce to truly understand the principles we’re teaching? How will the assignments support that learning? How much time do the students have to do this project?

And we’re right to ask those questions. Those are important questions.

But we also need to be asking some other practical questions: How much do we want to/can we grade? Can you really stomach reading 300 pages of summary of the same article? What is the work that you’d actually like to read?

I find that these questions are often aligned, actually. To avoid boredom on my end as the teacher, I generally have my students choose their topics. Sometimes it’s necessary to limit their choices, but even then they get to choose from a list. Occasionally, I will forbid a given topic because I have seen too many papers on it already. The benefit for me, of course, is that I’m not reading the same thing over and over again. But, pedagogically, there’s a benefit to the students as well, because by making a choice, they’re taking more agency over their assignments and education, and they’re more likely to be engaged in the work. Which returns back to me again as well, because that generally results in better work, which is more pleasant to read.

And the fact of the matter is that most of us are overburdened as teachers already, as are our students, too. They have too many demands on them to let them truly explore a topic. We, however, have too many students, classes, service, and other obligations to truly dedicate the time and attention every student deserves. We are bound by pragmatic considerations.

Since we are bound by pragmatic considerations, it seems only fair that we should ask not only “What should the students be doing?” but also “How much student work do I really want to look at?”

Memento Mori: A Visit to Beech Grove

Something that is safe and pleasant right now is to take a walk in your local cemetery. In a twist that runs contrary to every impulse most people have, the living are dangerous right now, but the dead? Perfectly safe.

Cemeteries used to be popular gathering places, no different than other parks. People would have picnics on their family plot, as way to remember their loved ones and enjoy the garden atmosphere of the cemetery at the same time.

Beech Grove in Muncie, IN, which is my local public cemetery, is a 19th century cemetery that fully embodies the garden/park design of cemeteries in the last 200 years or so—a design now so ubiquitous that we consider it the traditional, normal way to bury loved ones, even though it’s quite a modern concept. It’s beautiful, and as photographing cemeteries happens to be a thing I really enjoy doing, I’d like to share it with you.

The gazing ball, fountain, and chapel/office at Beech Grove in Muncie, IN

This is the older part of the cemetery, with the original stone gate with gothic arches and the stone chapel, which now serves as the management office. In the summer, this pond is a fountain, but it’s still a bit too chilly in Muncie to be running fountains. The gazing ball is a nice Victorian touch.

One thing I look for in my photography is balance. I’m really fascinated by the interplay of natural things, like these trees, and manmade spaces. I like lines that move together, like this very unique family stone and the tree arching over it.

As you can tell, Beech Grove is a very large cemetery. This is, actually, only the tiniest part of it. I’ve been to this cemetery a number of times. There are still corners I haven’t visited yet. There’s an active railroad track running through the middle of it. There’s an entire military cemetery inside the larger cemetery. Honestly, it’s paradise for me.

Beech Grove is home to a lot of mausoleums, which I absolutely love about it. Muncie was, until manufacturing lost its power in the Midwest as a core industry, home to a number of influential and wealthy families, most notably the Ball family (yes, of the mason jar fame) for which my employer Ball State University is named. They have a number of the most magnificent mausoleums in Beech Grove Cemetery, most of which are carefully aligned east-west so that the sun pours through the stained glass in the morning and evening.

A stained glass window inside a mausoleum

One of the advantages of coming to the cemetery with a camera is that you can see inside the mausoleums better with the lens sometimes. It was only with the camera that I could truly appreciate the detail on this Jesus as Good Shepherd stained glass in one of the mausoleums; otherwise, I’m just viewing it through the bars of the front door.

A stained glass window viewed through a mausoleum door

Other stained glass is more abstract, or has family initials in it. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful, even—or especially—viewed through the gates of the mausoleum. Remember what I said about composition, with complementary lines? I admit I had fun with this one.

One of the most fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking, things to pay attention to when walking in a cemetery is what’s called “grave goods.” That is, the things that mourners leave behind with the dead. We see such things on roadside shrines, wherever an accident or murder has happened. On children’s graves, you’ll often find teddy bears or toy cars or other children’s items. Military graves are often adorned with a few coins, a signal by other military veterans that they came to remember the deceased. Grave goods are often deeply personal, and may represent superstitions or other folklore, and usually say a lot about the relationship of the deceased to the living who leave the grave goods. I have to admit, though, I don’t understand most of the grave goods I see. This bundle, for instance, on the door of a mausoleum. It reminds me of sage smudge sticks, but it’s lavender and a feather. I won’t presume to interpret it, but it was beautiful and I’m sure deeply meaningful to the people who left it there. If you know more, please tell me!

Interesting grave goods left on a mausoleum door

Moving away from the mausoleums, I did notice some other “behind the scenes” things that were visible that day. Although I suspect the fence is supposed to cover this area, there was a work area visible beyond a fence line, and I think it’s worth looking at what was there.

Many of the headstones in Beech Grove are sinking, because land in Muncie is soft, and the cemetery is actually on the banks of the river. I’ve been told that many of the oldest, smaller stones have actually sunken beneath the grass, and can only be found now with radar or other detection tools. If you are in a very old cemetery, especially a family plot where natural burials or plain wooden caskets were used, you can sometimes see where the graves are by where the ground has sunken in a grave shape. This is often where the body and casket have decayed, and thus the ground caves in a little. In order to fix this, modern cemeteries generally use metal or concrete vaults, like this one. The casket is laid inside the vault, and then the vault supports the ground above it to prevent the grave-sized dips in the lawn.

Another thing I watch for in a cemetery is unique grave markers. Like this one:

I don’t actually know what’s going on here. These appear to be ceramic bricks. It’s likely that this is a handmade marker made by the mourners themselves. I have seen similar constructions in poorer, more rural cemeteries. But I don’t know whatthe story is here. Again, if you have ideas, please comment!

This one, with the small statuette, is a little more typical of what I find in cemeteries to make grave markers more personal. This one is one of my favorite styles: the bench as grave marker. And I do enjoy photographing statuettes. I particularly love sculptures like this, which depict draped fabric, and which have some where and weathering on them. She really is beautiful.

A statuette of a mourning woman adorns a bench-style grave marker

Anyway, thank you for taking a walk through my local cemetery with me. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Please enjoy your own local cemeteries; they’re very pleasant places, you know.

How To Decide To Cut A Scene: A Heuristic for Writers

Almost every fiction writer has heard “kill your darlings” and “show don’t tell.” These pithy sayings get repeated so much that they lose a lot of meaning and they’re frankly a little annoying, because they don’t really help writers know when to kill darlings, or which darlings to kill, or what to show and not tell, or what makes showing or telling. They’re frustrating, right?

Let’s craft your book!
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood ❤ (via Stocksnap)

So let’s work on a heuristic to help you know when to cut a scene—that is, when to “kill your darling”—and in some degree to know what to show your readers in your novel. This heuristic can be used for whole chapters, whole scenes, even whole story arcs or characters, but also for smaller pieces, such as paragraphs or dialogue. Any unit you’re looking at and considering if you should keep it while revising, this heuristic will work for.

But before I get started, I want to put a disclaimer on this, which really is a pretty standard disclaimer for my writing advice most of the time. All this should be applied primarily in revision, not when hammering out a first draft. Do not let ruminating about if a scene meets these criteria stop you from writing the scene! This is just a way to make your writing tighter, which happens later. If you’re NaNoWriMo-style drafting, tuck this away in your pocket with your inner editor for later.

So here’s the heuristic: Cut anything that doesn’t achieve at least one of these three purposes:

Advance plot
Develop character
Develop themes

Ideally, every element you are examining should achieve at least two of these criteria. Anything meeting all three definitely needs to stay!

Here lies your darlings?
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood, because ok I like her photos (via StockSnap)

There is one other caveat, which is to cut anything that does one of these things that is also being done more effectively by another section. For instance, if you have a scene that advances the plot by revealing the villain’s big overarching plan, but you also have another scene that does the same thing and at the same time exposes the villain’s ultimate betrayer’s motivations, then keep the second scene, not the first one.

And there is another note about this tool you should be aware of: this is in order of importance. If the material only develops theme, you might think very seriously about cutting it; if it only develops plot, it’s still a bit weaker than if it does two things, but that’s a stronger argument to keep it. In fact, if you have something that only does one thing, I recommend that you consider combining it with something else, so that it will do two things. Then you know you should keep it.

So what does get cut here? Those beautiful descriptions of the weather. That deep world building where you explore all the grammatical and etymological intricacies of your conlang (constructed language). That backstory where your main character discusses their family, but that has little to do with why your main character is here now.

As I often say to my students: Happy revising!

About Those Staggered Due Dates…

Previously I wrote about my scheme this semester to stagger due dates by having students sign up for a date during a “due week,” and reported that it was doing pretty well.

I wrote too soon.

As you may have surmised, time simply has no meaning anymore. Even self-selected due dates became meaningless when my classes moved to online-only, as most of our classes have done in the past month or so.

However, while I admit that I’ve been struggling really hard to keep up, I’m impressed at my students. Although I threw out the “due week,” I am pleased to report that flexible due dates are still working.

So, our pivot to online happened during a due week. Literally. I informed my students both in our last in-person meeting and via announcements on Canvas and emails clarifying the policies that the due dates would remain on Canvas, but all late work would be accepted indefinitely without penalty. That the due dates are now merely suggestions. Future due dates are due dates and they won’t have to sign up for due dates, but the flexibility remains.

As you might expect in a week when everything was rapidly changing and my students had to figure out how to suddenly vacate campus, almost every assignment was turned in late. That’s ok. Even so, most of them have turned something in. That’s remarkable, really!

Although I am personally struggling to keep my head above water right now (I know I’m in a good situation, but my depression doesn’t seem to understand that), I’m actually pleased at how well my policies have transferred to the online-only model. Attendance was not a part of my actual grade calculations previously, but rather required for administrative reasons (in accordance with my program’s policy at the time, which is likely to change soon anyway). So I don’t have to “replace” that part of it. But there are other, more important parts of how my class model is working that maybe will help with course design for future semesters.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the points are spread out evenly throughout the semester. If my university closed everything down right now, I could still report student progress in a way that, honestly, would accurately predict most students’ actual performance at the end of the semester if it had been uninterrupted. Students have already banked half of their semester’s points or more. Out of six core assignments, they’ve turned in three and have significant progress on the next two already. They’ve already read most of one of their two textbooks, and are fast catching up on the other. If everything shut down this week, I’d actually feel pretty good about marking them all as pass for my course and still feel confident that they had the fundamental skills that universities would expect them to have from my course description.

Sure, my motivation was to account for my own work load and spread out the labor for myself over the course of the semester. I selfishly designed my course to avoid a crunch at the end for myself. But in the process, I fortuitously managed to do the same for my students, I think.

The second thing that worked really, really well and made the pivot easier was the sequence of assignments. They’re scaffolded pretty well. I’m not just saying this for my own aggrandizement; I’m using the same model I used in previous semesters that students wrote in their evaluations was useful. Right now my students are finishing up their bibliography assignment, which is one of two core prescribed and required assignments for the course description. And while my heart stops at the concept of assigning an annotated bibliography without full library support, the fact is they’ve already done most of this assignment. I had them collecting sources for their previous assignments. I had them do their library work already. It’s just documenting what they have and filling in any cracks. That they can do with online-only resources.

The next assignment is the other required core assignment, the big research paper. They’ve also already written most of this assignment. The previous assignments—a literature review and a fieldwork report—make up over half of this. I’m encouraging them to just revise and stitch the material together. All they have to add is a discussion section, which is often the easiest part to put together because it’s most like what they’ve written before and it’s merely extending what they’ve already done.

Am I sad that they will lose some of the horizontal learning that came from classroom discussion? Yes. Am I missing the routine of regular classes? Absolutely. Am I really missing the support of a full library and other on-campus resources? Definitely. But will my students be fine, as far as my class is concerned? I feel pretty confident saying yes right now.

Whom Do You Write For?

One of the hardest questions that authors get asked perhaps too seldom is “Who are you writing for?” It’s also, perhaps, the most important. More important even than “Why are you writing?” or “What are you writing?”

Writing without an audience just doesn’t work. The audience completes the text, you see. Sure, the author may shape it but it’s the audience who imbues it with meaning; no audience, no text. Even when you are writing “just for yourself,” you have an audience, whose presence shapes the text (you obviously write differently when you write for just yourself than when you write for someone else)

When I ask my students “Who is this for?” when we’re practicing rhetorical analysis, or even when I’m workshopping with them, they usually answer “Anyone? Everyone?” This is a pretty universal response, really. But it’s also an entirely useless response.

It’s not my students’ faults, of course. It’s very hard to imagine other people as fully separate entities. We like to think about universality and we think a larger audience is always a good thing, but the opposite is really true. Writing really comes alive when the audience is clearly considered. Truly amazing writing isn’t about the author being heard; it’s about the audience feeling seen. Writing is, at its core, an act of empathy.

But for the audience to be seen, the author has to see them in some way, if only in imagination. And therein lies the trouble. And therein also—very often!—lies writer’s block.

Let me tell you two stories about writer’s block.

First story: Yesterday morning, I spent three hours trying to put together a 5-10 minute tutorial on formatting tricks in Microsoft Word. This is something I know intuitively; I can, and have, taught this in my sleep (I have weird dreams sometimes). I actually really enjoy working with formatting in Word. It’s magical and satisfying.

But yesterday, I couldn’t get it right. I was skipping steps. I was stumbling. I was losing track of things that I normally know where they are. Nothing was working for me.

But then my partner pointed out the difference: normally when I teach this lesson, I have my students in front of me. Normally, I can see who I’m talking to and I can engage them. But not this time. This time I was talking to no one. Of course I couldn’t get it right. Correctness and quality lies not in the author, but the audience.

Second story: Many years ago, I was helping my brother work on a college application for a program he really, really wanted to get into. My brother, mind you, is not very strong with conventional writing; he’s a good storyteller, but a lousy grammarian, and he can’t spell to save his life. So the essay was giving him trouble. He complained of the classic signs of writer’s block. He was so anxious about this essay he couldn’t even start it. I, in my teacherly way, was asking questions, trying to diagnose the problem over AIM, because of course that’s how we were talking at the time (I clung to that program to the day it died).

Finally, he told me he didn’t know who he was writing for. Aha! The problem was audience anticipation! So I coached him: I told him that his audience was academics, like me. So write to me, but me in my professional role.

The AIM window went quiet for too long. The “user is typing” notification flashed on and off. I got worried I’d offended him, and was about to ask if everything was ok, when paragraphs started streaming into my window.

There it was, a nearly perfect personal essay, fully formed and sprung from his head like Athena herself, just pouring into my window. It was so beautiful I nearly cried. And all he needed was a clear idea of his audience.

The point is that audience awareness makes the difference. For instance, I write more fiction when I imagine a fandom spinning off of it. Not because of the glory of having followers, but because of the joy of having someone involved. We all write better when we remember who is on the other side of the page.

The reader is perhaps more important than the writer
Image via stocksnap

But this is also why so much of our students’ writing isn’t their best work. We ask them to imagine that they write for an audience that they don’t know anything about, that they’ve never met, and at the same time we tell them that we ourselves will evaluate their writing. So they have a real audience and an imagined audience, and we ask them to write for the imagined audience more than the real audience. This puts them in an impossible situation, of course.

Worse, we don’t really talk enough about the role of the audience. Students are concerned about their topics and their own identities as author when they discuss their projects. These are their projects, after all, so it must be about them. The audience isn’t a major consideration, and that is probably the problem half the time.

But every genre has an implicit and requisite audience, whose expectations and needs shape the genre’s conventions far more than the authors who operate in those genres. Writing is an act of service, as good journalists understand. Writing is about delivering to your audience whatever it is the audience needs, wants, or craves. In order to do that, you need to know what they expect, who they are, and what their needs are.

When we remember who is on the other end of our pens, we write better. So, how can we help developing writers consider audience better?

In Defense of the Unfinished Project

In my family, I’m known as the finisher of projects. My mother has given me a number of projects—some started before I was born!—and I’ve finished many of them for her. I have a reputation for getting things done, for being cunning and not even attempting something until I’ve made a plan for its execution and completion. And, comparatively speaking, I may have earned that reputation.

Crafting!
Image by Suzy Hazelwood via StockSnap

But I don’t feel like much of a finisher. I’m working in my craft room right now (at least until the weather gets warmer and/or sunnier, so I can work in my preferred home office, which is my porch), and I’m surrounded by unfinished projects: a half-knitted wool sock, some quilt squares that need to be joined into a quilt top, my freakin’ wedding dress (yeah, I should get on that…), a crocheted blanket I’ve been working on on-and-off for literal years… At some level it feels like reminders that I’m a failure. And that’s not even touching the digital record, which is filled with false starts on novels that I can’t even remember what they were about, half-written fragments, abandoned research ideas that I swear I’ll get back to eventually…

But I’m sure most of us have at least some of these things, these projects that we’re sure we’ll finish eventually if we ever remember to get around to them. And I think we have to view these unfinished projects as something akin to rejection letters.

That may not sound hopeful, so let me explain about rejection letters: rejection letters are not a condemnation. They are, in fact, badges of honor. They say “You did a thing! I tried! You put something out there!” That may be cold consolation, of course, and of course rejection letters can indicate that there’s something flawed in your approach, but they can also indicate that while you made an attempt, it just wasn’t the right time or audience or direction. But how would you have known if you didn’t try?

The unfinished project is similar. The unfinished project says “This was not the right combination of circumstances, motivation, and skill for this project.” But you couldn’t have known until you tried. Sometimes what was needed was a clear timeline with a deadline. Sometimes what was needed was a different design. Sometimes what was needed was simply the knowledge that you just don’t do well with that particular approach (I have learned, through many unfinished projects, that I’m just bad at knitting and not a really great crocheter either. Doesn’t really stop me from trying my hand at it almost perennially).

But the unfinished project doesn’t just tell you about the shortcomings. It tells you that you tried something. It tells you that you dreamed something. It’s real evidence that you’re doing things. Just like the rejection letter, it speaks to possibility, and it speaks to your efforts. Did you maybe bite off more than you could chew? Probably. Turns out knitting socks is hard, for instance. But did you also learn something about yourself and other people? Yes.

Each unfinished project fills me with more respect for the finishers of similar projects. Each unfinished project, even when I feel ashamed about it, fills me also with understanding of my own limitations, which means finishing another project will be easier. Every false start means I’m one step closer to a real start.

Many people are afraid to start. They look at projects—be they novels, hand-knitted sweaters, or whatever it is—and think “I could never do that.” But they don’t know that for sure, because they haven’t actually and earnestly tried.

The unfinished project says, “I could do that, but maybe I can’t do that right now. But at least I know why.”

Redundancy Is Good Praxis

I just got done setting up the second online module for my formerly face-to-face classes. When we all were preparing to go online, I knew I had some advantages: I’ve done this before (in fact, I’ve been plundering some of my previous online classes’ resources to help the shift), and I know from experience that less is more. But I also know this: redundancy is good.

Here’s what I mean by redundancy: don’t be afraid to post the same content in more than one way. Take a look at how I’ve got my “lectures” structured here:

What’s going on here? I’ve got identical content on the same page. The written content is actually my script for the video, and they are completely redundant. This is how I structured content in previous online courses, and if student evaluations are any judge (they aren’t, but they’ll do here), it worked really well. The video is entirely optional, as is the reading; they have to do at least one, but they can choose what will work with their bandwidth, attention span, learning mode, etc. And that’s what matters most here: student choice.

So here’s my method, because it actually doesn’t take very much time to do this, even though it seems like a lot of work:

Write your transcript first. I can’t stress this enough. Writing a script is faster than transcribing a video. It also reduces takes and editing on the video. I shoot most of my lecture videos in one take these days, although I had to do a few false starts when I first started doing this technique, so it’s ok if you can’t do it in one take. Anyway, write your transcript as if you were speaking to a student. After some practice you’ll learn to write in a way that closely approximates how you speak on video. Don’t expect to be great at it at first.

Dress as you would for face to face class. I’m all in favor of synchronous zoom meetings in PJs, don’t get me wrong there. But this is about getting yourself into teacher mode. I only wear makeup when I’m teaching or performing, but I do makeup for my videos. It makes me feel better about being on camera. Likewise, I only wear clothes I’d wear in the classroom when I’m on camera. Again, this is more for me than for the students. This is how I get into my teaching persona and not just feel awkward.

Record video using software you understand. Don’t try using anything complex. This isn’t a professional production. This is more like an old school vlog. Use your webcam or whatever you understand. I just use the default camera app on Windows and my webcam. It’s not great production value, but you aren’t making a professional course shell here; you’re just trying to connect with students.

Use video hosting that you understand, too. I upload my videos to YouTube and make them unlisted. YouTube manages video well and even offers auto-captioning. Uploads are fast and easy. There are other video platforms, and they might even be better for my purposes. But I understand YouTube, so I use YouTube.

Put all available access modes in the same place. This will help your users understand that they have options, rather than thinking that each object is a different requirement. The key here is that students understand they are in control of content delivery. Notice in the image that I have a note on videos; I’m copying that statement above EVERY VIDEO that I post. Every. Single. One.

Apply redundancy anywhere you can. You know your content better than your students, so you should be responsible for thinking of multiple access modes.

Why redundancy? Students have different abilities. For instance, I know I would be annoyed if I had to watch videos for everything; to me, reading feels more active, quicker, and I can understand every word (where my hearing loss makes video hit or miss). But for, say, my partner, video is preferred; he can’t focus well on blocks of text, and prefers to be taught through the measured pace of a video, where he can look at what he’s doing while listening to instructions. Both of these learning modes are valid and good learning modes. It really doesn’t take very much time to provide both.

But a word of caution: keep videos short! Anything over 10 minutes is going to be a burden, not a support. Currently my goal is to not produce a lecture video over 5 minutes. That’s about 700 words, for reference. It’s reasonable. I’m doing ok on this goal. You can to.

In sum, it takes a little more effort, but not very much, to offer more than one mode of delivery for content in an online course. What are some modes that you like to offer to your students?

The Lamb Said Meow

Here’s a fun little fairy tale suitable to read aloud to kids.

It was time for the annual animal assembly, where the animals agreed every year on rules for the animal kingdom.

All the animals were there, and there was such a noise! No one could hear each other over all the sounds, so the animals decided they should all speak one language. Then everyone would be the same, and they would agree on everything.

“I am a noble animal,” said the horse. “Everyone should neigh as I do.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said the lion. “How could I ever be ferocious if I made such a silly sound? Everyone should roar as I do.”

“If I roared,” said the mouse, “how would I hide? Everyone should squeak as I do, and then it will be quieter.”

“If I am quiet like the mouse,” said the cow, “how will the farmer find me in the field? A moo is a good sound. Everyone should moo as I do.”

“I don’t like to moo,” said the lamb. “The farmer finds me fine when I say baa, so everyone should baa as I do.”

“What a silly sound,” said the cat. “I make the best sound of all. Everyone should meow, as I do.”

“If I meow,” said the dog, “how will I protect my master? Everyone should say woof, as I do.”

Now, the wise monkey stood up and said to the animals: “Ook, I will put everyone’s sound in this jar. Then we will pick one randomly out of the jar, and whichever sound we pick, we will all make that sound. So, everyone, say your sound, and it will go in the jar.”

So the horse neighed, and the lion roared, and the mouse squeaked, and the cow mooed, and the lamb baaed, and the cat meowed, and the dog woofed, and the monkey ooked. And then all the sounds were together in the jar, and all the animals were waiting for the wise monkey to pick which sound they would all say.

But the animals were not very patient. The mouse wiggled its ears and twitched its tail, and the cat thought that was great fun, so the cat chased the mouse. And then the dog was excited and chased the cat who was chasing the mouse. And the lion thought that looked like great fun, too, so the lion chased the dog who chased the cat who chased the mouse. And the lamb and the horse and the cow got scared by all the confusion when the lion chased the dog who chased the cat who chased the mouse, and so they ran as well, and soon all the animals were running about!

But then they knocked over the monkey’s jar with all their sounds in it, and the sounds scattered everywhere like glitter. And each animal began to say whichever sound landed on it.

The horse said roar!

The lion said squeak!

The mouse said baa!

The cow said woof!

The lamb said meow!

The cat said neigh!

The dog said ook!

And the monkey said moo!

And none of the animals were very happy at all.

The wise monkey stood up and said, “I think we will all be happier if we all speak in our own ways. We are different animals, so we should say different things. But we’ll need some help to get this right again. Everyone will have to put the words they got back together and we will have to find whose words they are.

So the animals all put the words in a pile, and the wise monkey took them out one at a time:

Who should say roar?

The lion!

Who should say neigh?

The horse!

Who should say squeak?

The mouse!

Who should say moo?

The cow!

Who should say baa?

The lamb!

Who should say meow?

The cat!

Who should say woof?

The dog!

Who should say ook?

The monkey!

And then all the animals had their own sounds back, and they agreed next year that they would be themselves at the annual animal assembly.

Facing Mistakes: What Being Mature Means

On a recent Sunday, I woke up 7 minutes after I was supposed to be at choir rehearsal. This is, of course, my greatest fear in life. Not missing choir rehearsal specifically, but the thing I dread most, literally the thing that keeps me awake at night, is being late to social obligations. This is why, for instance, I have not gotten a good night’s sleep the night before a semester starts for as long as I can remember (I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in years but that’s another story).

I don’t know how to illustrate this post so I’m going to post random cat photos I find on StockSnap and think are nice photographs.
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina via StockSnap

But after literally exclaiming “Oh shoot oh shoot what do I doooo what do I dooo” upon waking up, I made a decision to rush through getting dressed and go anyway. I made it about 20 minutes after I was supposed to be there. That was ok. I missed warmup. I was there with just enough time to robe up and be ready for the church service. Everyone forgave me immediately, if they even noticed. After all, it’s a normal thing and happens to everyone at some point.

But as I wrestled with feelings of worthlessness and guilt over my (admittedly small) mistake, and the incongruity of how easily I was forgiven and accepted for my mistake, I was given over to reflecting on how the most mortifying things somehow usually don’t result in our lives actually being over. Somehow, we pick up the pieces and move on, even when our worst fears come true. I was also given a chance to reflect on how much better I handled it than I might have done ten years ago. In short, I realized that I had, at some point, gotten a little more mature.

All of us make mistakes. All of us wind up doing the very things we want least to do at some point, whether that’s hurting our loved ones or letting down a client or whatever it is. We’re human. We’re imperfect. We’re bad at doing the things we should.

I don’t know what this cat’s thinking but I can relate.
Photo by Dylan Thompson via StockSnap

But a little grace goes a long way. And grace, I think, is truly what it means to be mature, to be the adult in the room. Grace to forgive others when they mess up. And, hardest of all, grace to forgive ourselves when we mess up.

That day I was shown grace immediately. That was easily given. But somewhere in myself I found the grace to forgive myself, and that was a rare gift, one I didn’t really think I’d ever find.

I’m not sure where this grace truly comes from, but I do know we don’t know where it is until we need it, and then it often appears. Because somehow, no matter how embarrassed we might be at our own mistakes, we still have to face our lives. Time goes on. It doesn’t wait for us to get over ourselves. And worst of all, while we can take a break from friends or family who disappoint us, we can’t take a break from ourselves. So we need to find that grace to forgive ourselves, to live through and work through our shame, and when we do, those are the moments we grow up.

I genuinely don’t know whose cat this is but it’s beautiful.
Photo by Pacto Visual via StockSnap

Before you go

I’ve been thinking about what I can do to help out while people are stressed out. I know for me, I need something that isn’t news to populate my internet right now. A place to turn away.

I’m going to go through some of my old short stories and start posting them on this site. I can guarantee you some escapism and more happy endings than tragic, because that’s how I roll. I can’t guarantee much quality, though. Most of these were written more than five years ago.

The Good, The Bad, and The Covid-19

Yesterday, Ball State University announced that we will be suspending in-person classes for the remainder of the semester, effective Monday. I wasn’t surprised, honestly, and I’m actually a little relieved.

Welcome to your new classroom!
Photo WDnet Studio via StockSnap

I’m not given to panic. But I know I’ve been dragging lately, and honestly the requirement to entirely change my teaching strategy overnight excites me. I feel immense relief and even a bit of peace at the chance for something, as Monty Python might say, completely different.

I’ve taught online a fair bit at this point. I may not specialize in it, but if my student evaluations are any measurement (they may not be), I’m pretty good at it, maybe even better than I am at face to face teaching, and I’m pretty comfortable with asynchronous interactions, which is my preferred way to run an online class.

My biggest fear regarding the pivot here is actually that, lately, I’ve been struggling to concentrate unless I’m working in the library or with other people. At home I just stare at the screen. I know that for many people telecommuting is a great option; for me, it is a recipe for missed deadlines apparently, at least right now. But it’s a problem I’ll have to solve, one way or another.

And for people in the same situation, staring down the barrel of a sudden switch to online—and I know there are many of you!—I understand the fear of what we may be giving up by not being able to meet with our students.

Yesterday my office hours were basically a revolving door. I don’t often have to ask a student to wait while I work with another student, but yesterday I did, because I was apparently just that popular. And I feel good about the work I did, because it was meaningful work. It was work to help them achieve their goals beyond just my own classes’ scopes; it was work to assuage anxieties, tend talent, and foster futures. Yesterday I found myself not only teaching writing, but acting as a mentor, an adviser, a counselor, and just a genuinely caring person. It felt whole.

And I recognize that in asynchronous online-only instruction, these kinds of magical moments where a conversation starts as being about source handling or something else mundane and ends up being about hopes and dreams, fears and anxieties, or whatever else are less likely to occur. Less likely, yes, but not entirely absent.

Working front home is the new office hours
Image by Nao Triponez via StockSnap

Online instruction is a different space and requires different listening strategies. But there is definitely one advantage that we have, those of us suddenly forced to change our entire course structure overnight because of a tiny virus (as of this past week, we are legion). Our greatest advantage is this: We already know our students. They already trust us. We already have a rapport.

This is something very different than an entirely online asynchronous course that was designed as such. Although many of us are focused on the fact that we don’t have time to carefully design the kinds of workflow and scaffolding that make an effective online environment (we don’t; we have to acknowledge that), we can’t lose sight of what we do have that most online courses don’t: an established classroom community. Our students know our voice and style already. We know theirs.

One of the challenges of online teaching, as many people have already acknowledged, is building community and rapport—that is, keeping the human trust that makes it all feel real and whole and makes learning work. But that work is already done. All we need to do now, really, is keep in contact, keep delivering content and feedback, keep structuring assignments, and keep checking in with our students. The same stuff we would normally be doing at this part of the semester. We’re just doing it a little sideways now. And that’s ok.