C O A L E S C E N C E

"Don't use Wikipedia!"

Many university professors employ a number of strategies to help students think critically and evaluate the sources they use when they (the students) do research. Unfortunately, in my opinion, some of these professorial strategies take the form of prohibitions that simply prevent the students from exercising their critical thinking abilities. The prohibition that I am concerned about here is the popular practice of forbidding students from using Wikipedia as a research source.

The practice of forbidding Wikipedia has spread. One high school in New Jersey blocked Wikipedia from its library computers--an extreme action, for sure [silly nonsense, actually--where are the parents?!]. Others simply forbid students from using Wikipedia as a source for research projects.

But not everyone is convinced. One blogger spoke out strongly against this kind of over-reaction, and suggested ways that school administrators could themselves be educated about the value of Wikipedia. I agree. Further, peer-reviewed studies have shown that the main-core articles in Wikipedia are equally as accurate as those in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Ah, but skeptics will say--Any idiot can come along and change a Wikipedia article, so that makes it an unreliable source! No, it means only that readers must carefully and critically evaluate every source that they draw from Wikipedia--just as they do with any other source they use. We all know that even printed books have mistakes in them; journal articles have errors in them. How are college freshmen to evaluate the relative merits of one book or journal against another? Well, mostly they can't; their lack of knowledge and experience prevents them.

The point is that avoiding Wikipedia does not safeguard them from research errors. They must still critically evaluate every source they use. They need to practice their critical thinking skills on lots of different types of materials, and forbidding them from using Wikipedia won't help them to grow as researchers or thinkers.

The arguments against Wikipedia can be made against almost any other kind of research material, and the care that one must take in evaluating Wikipedia articles must also be taken in evaluating almost any other kind of research material. There seems, therefore, to be no really valid reason for forbidding students from using Wikipedia as a research source.

What are we worried about? Set the students free! Let them use Wikipedia!

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

This paper is bleeding to death

Some years ago, when I started my 2nd life as a pursuer of English studies, I was exposed to much new knowledge that helped me to become a better teacher. However, despite the fact that I was a beginner at the English arts, I felt that I needed to take some of the things that I was taught, as the Romans might say, cum grano salis--"with a grain of salt."

One of those bits of wisdom that I was skeptical about was the prohibition against marking papers with red ink. Red ink, we were told, looks like blood, is offensive to students, and should not be used. Instead, when grading or marking papers, we should use pencil--or at least a different color ink than red: purple, green, orange--anything but red.

It seems that many people agreed with this. The protests of parents have caused some school districts to order their teachers not to use red pens when grading papers, and the trend seems to have affected even the production of pen colors. And yet, I remained--and still remain--highly skeptical.

I tried marking papers in pencil, but the students couldn't see the marks. And then I used purple, green, and orange--and it dawned on me: After all, no matter what color the marks or comments are in, the student has still made the same number of errors. I have still written the same comments on the student's paper. What difference does it make whether they are green, purple, orange--or red? Red marks are easier to see.

And what, after all, is the purpose of the marks? Is it to raise the student's self-esteem? Or is it to help the student to improve? And if it is to help the student to improve, then what possible difference could it make what color the marks are [in]?!

This seems to me, therefore, to be a false issue.

As always, I'm willing to listen to other views, and even to change my mind, if presented with valid reasons.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

Sick and tired

For the past 2 weeks, I have not posted on this blog. The reason is simple: I have been as sick as I can remember being in a l-o-n-g time, as Obi-Wan might say. A nurse told me last week that it couldn't be "the flu," since I didn't have fever, but I don't believe that. Congestion, coughing, aching, no energy, and a chest full of crud (sorry for the graphic description)--and it was getting worse, not better.

So I finally gave in and went to the doctor. He confirmed that I didn't have pneumonia--TG--and gave me some antibiotics to kill the bugs and some cough medicine/decongestant to break up the chest crud. I felt better within half a day, and a lot better within a day. When you get this stuff, you always think, "If I go to the doctor too soon, he (my doctor is of the male persuasion) will just tell me to wait it out, it will get better on its own . . . " So I waited--and got worse and worse.

Meanwhile, my teaching duties continued unrelentingly (is that a word?). I missed one day of classes because of illness, and I thought I ought not miss more if I could help it. So I dragged my weak and sickly carcass up to school and taught my classes, feeling terrible and, I'm sure, looking to my students like "death eating a cracker." The whole experience was painful and difficult.

After I got the flu last spring, even though I had taken the flu shot, as I do each year, I tried to be "pro-active" and ward off disease as effectively as I could. I purchased anti-viral tissues, alcohol wipes, and antibacterial hand cleaner for my office. I tried to remember to wash my hands between classes, and as often as possible at other times. Evidently it wasn't enough.

I got sick again anyway.

Well, I'm not giving up. Maybe now I need to work on the vitamin angle.

One thing is for sure: Getting sick like this every semester, and losing 2 weeks of work, is not acceptable.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

As I was saying . . .

Last week I did something in my ENG 321 classes that I have meant to do for many years, but have never remembered to include in my syllabus: I asked the students for a mid-semester "course evaluation"--the idea being that they might give me some useful feedback at this point in the semester, and I could put it into practice now, instead of waiting until the end of the semester to get the evaluations, after the classes are finished.

I asked them to be open and candid, but also respectful, just as they would on the end-of-semester evaluations. If you've got something to say, I told them, say it.

They did.

It was a good, useful exchange of information. These are mature students, at least in many ways, and they tempered their evaluation with both positive and negative feedback. Here are some things we don't like, they said; change these. But here are some things we like, too; keep doing these, or in some cases, do more of them. Overall, the comments were well-balanced between bad and good.

So--things are working fairly well, but I've also got some work to do.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

The King . . .

B. B. King, that is. We saw him in concert on Sunday night, October 5, in Branson at the Welk Resort Theatre. Wow--what a show this 83-year-old legend put on. He performs sitting down because of bad knees, but that doesn't matter--he can still belt out the songs. And with his guitar, Lucille, he can still play just about as well as anyone in the world. He and his band--8 mostly large gentlemen (also) of African-American lineage--crank out the blues in an electrifying, crowd-pleasing show that makes you clap your hands, stomp your feet, and whistle and cheer.

As the kids say, it was AWESOME!

I've attached a short (50-second) video below of the first part of B. B. singing his signature song, "The Thrill Is Gone," which he performed at the end of his show on Sunday. Because this page allows only .flv video files, you will need the Adobe Flash Player; it is free here.

Music . . . power

The show was opened by the Rankin Brothers, a terrific, highly entertaining, and very professional 50s and 60s classic-rock cover band featuring Matt and Mark Rankin, plus their accompanying musicians and singers. These guys put on a fabulous show, performing songs by Neil Diamond, Buddy Holly, the Righteous Brothers, BTO, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Roy Orbison, and many more--and they sound like the real deal. They will be playing at the Welk through December; check out their website here for showtimes.

While I was listening to these guys perform--especially when Matt was singing the "Unchained Melody" (wow--that song gets to me!)--and then later, when "B.," as he calls himself, was performing, I thought about the power of music to affect people. More than almost anything else in human experience, music has the power to reach right down into the soul and touch parts of you that you didn't even know were there. Music can move people, both for good and ill--but mostly for good, I think.

I don't know much about William Congreve, who lived from 1670-1729. But he wrote a play called "The Mourning Bride," and in the first scene of that play one of his characters says, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." I agree, and Sunday night I was again reminded of just how powerful good music is.

Thank you, Rankin Brothers.

And thank you, especially, B. B. King, for your life of legend, making legendary music for all of us to enjoy.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

The lowest of the low . . .

There has to be a special place reserved in the 9th circle of Dante's inferno for those who buy up tickets to a concert and prevent others from getting tickets--only to turn around and scalp those same tickets on Stub Hub or Craigslist for 3-6 times (or more) their face value.

Tickets to the Eagles concert at JQH Arena on November 13 went on sale on Monday, Sept. 29, at 10 a.m. I had a class at that hour, so I did the right and honorable thing and went to class, thinking that I would still be able to get tickets after class. No way they would sell out in only one hour, right? Wrong! When I got online at about 11 a.m., the tickets were all gone.

But then, not long after that, one gets on Stub Hub and discovers that one reason the tickets sold out so quickly was because a lot of people bought tickets they don't plan to use, and apparently some people bought a lot of tickets just so they could scalp them--at ridiculously inflated prices. Bah, HUMBUG!

This is just a despicable, disgusting practice. It's not illegal, but it's @#$%& low-class.

So, all you ticket-grabbing scalpers--I hope you get stuck with your tickets. I hope you have to eat those $85 tickets that you're trying to sell for $333 dollars each on Stub Hub. Maybe next time you'll leave those tickets for someone who really wants to go to the concert--like me.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

A way to better teaching

The longer I teach, the more I realize that one of the best ways to become a better teacher is to let the students do the work--in a manner of speaking, of course. An ancient Chinese philosopher stated this idea well: What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. -- Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius).

The idea is to increase "time on task"--getting the students to spend time in class involved in active learning behaviors, rather than just sitting there listening to me talk. There is also a lot of research to support this idea, especially in the work of K. Anders Ericsson at Florida State University. Ericsson has studied expert performance and deliberate practice in a number of different contexts, and the "bottom line" is that people improve at something when they spend more time working on it in deliberate, focused effort that is guided by someone who knows how to structure the activity so it moves the student just slightly beyond their comfort zone.

 This principle also has implications for the teaching and learning of specific subjects. More about that later.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

. . . Become a student again

My classes went well today [at least I think they did; I hope my students agree]. Perhaps part of the reason for that was because I was well prepared: I had a lot of things to cover, lots of material, and plenty of movement from one thing to another. There was no time for boredom to set in or for lassitude or ennui to overwhelm. As a friend of mine used to say, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with paper."

As I think about my performance as a teacher in the classroom, I always try to think about the times when I have been a student and have been on the receiving end of a teacher's pedagogy. I try to remember what other teachers did that engaged me, that helped me to get involved and stay involved in the class. This was always especially hard for me, because I have ADD, and it has always been hard for me to stay focused on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. When I was younger (grade school up through high school), I was also somewhat hyperactive, and that added to the problem. People like me are especially difficult challenges for teachers.

In my own approach to pedagogy, I have tried to follow a few basic rules: 1] assume that everyone in the room has AD/HD, and design the curriculum, and each class session, to engage these unfocused, squirmy learners as efficiently as possible; 2] try to remember what it is like to be a student, to sit in a small, uncomfortable desk for an hour or more at a time--and prepare class sessions that relieve some of that discomfort with engaging, interesting material that will grab the students' attention and keep their minds engaged and moving from one topic to the next [I know--easier said than done; but at least a worthy goal, made more reachable by being clearly articulated.]; and 3] prepare, prepare, prepare--have more than enough to fill the time, and then see how things go, so you can be flexible in your moment-by-moment decisions.

Nothing is worse than trying to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out a lesson or activity that isn't working, or that you have finished, simply because you have 15 minutes of class time left and nothing else planned or prepared. Students hate that. I hate it; it's agony. So I try to remember what it was like to be a student, and just be sure to prepare enough ahead of time.

Remembering what it is like to be a student helps me in my ongoing, never-ending efforts to be a better teacher.

_{The opinions expressed in this blog are the views of the writer only, and do not represent the views or positions of Missouri State University, its English Department, or any of its other faculty, staff, or students.}

. . . Will hurt them

In the process of running some errands today, as I was driving down the street, I heard a loud noise in the lane next to me. At the next stop light, the car the noise was coming from pulled up next to my car, and I could both see the car's occupants (high-school-age white boys) and hear the noise coming from their car (what I am assuming is still called "rap" music--though here I use the term "music" very loosely). It was loud, it was noisy, and it was mostly very disgusting.

I realize that speaking out strongly on a subject like this will probably provoke some equally strong responses in the other direction. But I can't help but feel sorry for these kids. This is what they think of as . . . "music"--? This is all they know? I grew up in the 60s, and we had Buddy Holly, and the Beatles, the Association, Cream, and so much more. And then on into the 70s, which some consider to be even better than the 60s--the Doobie Brothers, ELO, Peter Frampton, Steely Dan, the Eagles, who are coming on November 13 to inaugurate our new JQH Arena, and on and on . . .

I'm sorry, but "rap" is not music, and those who "perform" it are not artists. They are talentless losers, inflicting mostly tuneless, irritating noise on the rest of the world, and conning gullible children into spending million$ on what amounts to absolute [crap].

The real losers in this tragedy are the young people who listen to this [stuff]. Surely there is something better for them, even by today's substandard post-classic-rock levels.

But who will lift them out of this gutter? Who will introduce them to real music--music with a tune, music with some class, music that elevates the spirit instead of debasing it? Who can take this message to them?

I don't know the answer to that. But I do know this: Kids today need to soar with the Eagles (and others), and leave the rap-crap-noise in the sewer, where it belongs.

"This is a football . . . "

The legendary football coach Vince Lombardi is said to have been angry at his players after a difficult game in which the Packers struggled. So, at the next team meeting, he began by saying, "Gentlemen, we're going back to the basics. This is a football." [It's reported that Paul Hornung raised his hand and said, "Coach, you're getting ahead of me. Could you go a little slower?" But I don't think anyone knows for sure if this really happened.]

I'm mentioning this because today, in my ENG 321 classes, we had a session on "writing effective sentences." The chapter took some basic sentence issues, like excessive wordiness, nominalization, misplaced modifiers, and other sentence-writing problems, and applied them to technical writing practice. But during the discussion of these issues, it quickly became apparent that my students, who are very bright and who are, mostly, very good writers, do not have much knowledge about basic English grammar and basic sentence structure.

For example, when we were discussing misplaced modifiers, which can be either phrases or clauses, and I asked a question like, "What is the main difference between a phrase and a clause?", it was common for only one or two--if we were lucky--to know [a clause contains a verb]. And when we saw a sentence with a glaring, obvious comma error of one kind or another, and instead of providing the answer for them, I asked them to be involved in active creation of knowledge, and I said, "OK--what's wrong with this sentence?", it was rare for more than 1 or 2 to venture a response.

Remember--most of these students are fairly good writers, and some are very good writers. But their ability to write well must be an inductively developed knowledge--like a person who learns a foreign language "on the street." They may be quite fluent in speaking the language, but they know virtually nothing about the grammar and underlying structure.

The Rosetta Stone of writing

So, you say--What's the problem? The problem is that an ability to write that is based on inductively learned "street skills" will take one only so far. Just as the Rosetta Stone was the key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, so, in the same way, an understanding of the sentence and its underlying structure is the key to good writing. These students have been cheated by an educational system--and worse, by an English establishment--that does not believe in teaching them the fundamentals of English grammar and writing conventions. And this is (1) a shame, (2) a terrible injustice to these students, (3) a serious lacuna in their education, which must now be filled by their college instructors--IFF¹ it gets filled at all.

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¹The expression IFF, as some will recognize, is borrowed from mathematics, and means "if and only if"-- with the obvious application here that since the educators from the previous 12+ years have failed to properly teach these students the basics of English grammar, mechanics, and writing conventions, it is left to the students' college instructors, IF ANYONE, to do the job.

And that is why these students often do not learn what they need to learn regarding English grammar, mechanics, and written conventions--because many college instructors/professors do not have the time, desire, or expertise to teach these things in their classes--even English teachers, who might want to teach them, but are constrained by curricular mandates and cannot always devote the time it would take to cover these issues adequately.