A Very Full Fall

And here we are, just like that, at the end of another semester. This semester has required more discipline and focus than in years past because with a little baby around every moment is precious! I want to be sure to not waste time that I could be spending with him, but I also want to do my work well and be totally focused on that when I'm working. This balance is tricky to strike and some days are better than others. I am glad to have made it to the end of the semester! I have about three more days worth of grading to do, and I plan to have my students' final grades submitted by the end of the week.

Baby Cohen Matthew was born on September 27th, 2019, but he was due on September 18th. I had things ready to go for my online classes until week eight of the semester by the 18th, but when he took his time making his appearance, I used that last week to work ahead and get my classes fully set up until week twelve of the semester. I took my maternity leave from Monday, September 23rd to Wednesday, October 23rd. During that time I answered some emails and calls, but I primarily let my wonderful TA and colleagues take the majority of the questions, student help, and grading responsibilities. I'm so grateful to them for doing so and to my students for understanding the circumstances. I'm also very grateful to my mom who watches the baby for four hours every morning so that I can have uninterrupted work time, and I'm grateful for a baby who likes to take naps in the afternoon... except right now, apparently. We have had some fun this fall including Wade running a half-marathon for World Vision in the Madison Marathon, hosting visiting friends and then family for Thanksgiving, and taking Cohen on his first mini road trip down to Chicago to see my family who were visiting from Colorado and New Mexico. 

I think things have really gone as smoothly as possible this semester. I've communicated with my students via email, phone, Canvas chat, Canvas announcements, and video announcements, and I've joined department meetings vis Skype. I haven't made it down to Olivet this semester with the baby arriving about a fourth of the way into the semester and then not getting his first immunization shots until the last full week. I have already planned three visits down to Olivet in the spring, and I'm looking forward to connecting to my colleagues and students in person. 

I taught two sections of College Writing II this semester and one section of Advanced Writing. In both courses the students work toward one major written composition for the majority of the semester. They all turned in their work just before Thanksgiving break, and I was honestly so impressed. Overall, the students were creative in their topics, articulate in their expression, thorough in their secondary research, creative in their primary research, and expressive in their investment in the ideas. I think that large composition projects can be overwhelming no matter when they begin, but I was glad to see that the students tried their best to use the time given to them to compose strong, original academic texts. My Advanced Writing students were expected to submit their work for consideration for publication, and I would be so excited to see some of these thoughtful, well-researched compositions be published and read by a wider audience.


In addition to my teaching work, I have also been a part of proposing a writing major for the English department. Based on input and feedback from my department chair and colleagues, I composed a rationale for the importance of implementing a writing major. That, along with a proposal drafted by our department last spring, was presented and distributed to various stakeholders, and the proposal was accepted in October! The Department of English at Olivet will now having a writing major offered starting in the fall of 2020. I'm so excited about the possibilities and opportunities that this major will offer to current and future Olivet students.

I also participated in an online course development module in the student role, alongside teaching online classes, this semester. I had the opportunity to develop two online course modules for the department, and this six-week course development training helped me in my preparation for creating ENGL 329: Writing Fiction and Poetry, which I will be teaching starting in January. I'm looking forward to working with upper division creative writing students again this spring, and I am curious as to how the online setup will affect the course experience. I will be teaching two more sections of College Writing II in the spring, as well as continuing to develop course descriptions and outcomes for our writing major.

I wasn't able to attend Feminisms & Rhetorics 2019 in Harrisonburg, VA this year, nor the Bloom Women's Retreat in Green Lake, WI. Those are two fall staples that I am disappointed to have missed out on, but I look forward to future attendance. I did get to attend our Bloom move night closer to home, and I was glad to get some time with that community of women. I am looking forward to attending the Conference on College Composition and Communication 2020 in Milwaukee, WI this spring, as well as for my article manuscript, "Food Memoir: Agency in Public and Private Rhetorical Domains" to be published in Peitho this fall. That article has been through several iterations over the past few years, and I am very glad to have it finally be finished and published.

In addition to my scholarly work, I was proud to have completed my reading goal of reading 19 books in 2019. In line with the year itself, there is quite a bit of variety represented here. I really enjoyed most of the books, and I have recommended several of them to others. My favorite fiction book of the year was The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan. It had just the right amount of intrigue, romance, whimsy, and literary references to be so satisfying. My favorite nonfiction book was Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman, which I listened to on Audible. I included an overview of that book in my "Baby Blog" post. All but two of the books that I read this year were written by women, and I think overall it was a great year of reading. Looking forward to reading 20 books in 2020.

I started this year with a trip to Thailand over my 30th birthday and am ending it at home with a three month old baby. There was lots of questioning, excitement, work, and planning in between, but we've made it! I realized the other day that this decade has been my first one as an adult, and it really has been one for the books! In this decade, I've: taught English at the college level for nine years at five different institutions, gotten six tattoos, traveled to four continents, lost three close family members, earned three post-secondary degrees, lived in three different states, bought two houses, owned two dogs, gotten married, and had a baby boy. I'm ready, though, for what the next decade will bring.

Here We Go, 2019!

January and February are always transition months-- into the new year as well as a new semester, schedule, and group of students. Lots of both personal and professional updates all mixed together. Here we go!

This spring semester I have 74 students between four classes. I am teaching two sections of College Writing I. One section meets twice a week, and the other meets just on Monday nights. I like the diversity between the courses, and both sets of students are attentive and strong. I am also teaching Business Communication and Technical Writing, which I taught in the fall as well. I really enjoy that class. There is a lot of hands on work time, group work, and live audiences responding to the student's work. I think especially for professional writing classes that last element is really important. I am also teaching Writing Fiction and Poetry for the first time. With a class of six students I am working towards a discussion based class where students can share, work, ideas, and misgivings. We've had a strange start to the semester with snow, ice, and wind days, but as we wrap up the fifth week of the semester I feel like we are going to move into the latter two thirds strong.

We had an eventful end to last year, including winning the baking contest I mentioned in my December post. Out of a friendly, intense competition of four, we came out on top. And our bake was gluten free! Got to spend good time with cousins and friends, though my lovely 88 year old Nana ended up in the hospital after all the Christmas excitement. Glad to report that she is finally back home and starting to heal.

The beginning of the year was also one for the record books! I helped host a women's event to celebrate the new year with our Ridgeway Bloom Women's Group. We had a great turn out, delicious breakfast food, and really fun activities. A week or so later Wade told me he was taking me out for dinner one night to celebrate my birthday, but it turns out he had a whole surprise party planned! It was a wonderful night of feeling so celebrated by my friends, eating lovely snacks my sister put out, and playing games together. It was a "Black and White" theme, and I loved it. 

I started the semester here at Olivet in mid-January. I taught my first week of classes, packed up and boarded a plane headed to Bangkok, Thailand! My husband and I spent ten days in Thailand to start out 2019. We spent about three days in Bangkok total, exploring the markets, getting foot massages, and looking over the river. The majority of the trip we spent in Sukhothai, Thailand at Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary. Hung out with the two employees, six kiddos, one volunteer, other three guests, 12 elephants, at least six dogs, multiple mahouts, and a host of other rescued animals including a horse named Teddy. We spent our days walking with the elephants, helping take care of dogs, eating delicious Thai food, cutting down corn or banana trees, and watching the sun set over a bonfire or water reservoir. I celebrated my 30th birthday there, and I fell in love with sweet old elephant Pang Fai. It was truly a magical, once in a lifetime experience. 

This semester a few exciting things are coming up. One is the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication. It is being hosted in Pittsburgh this year, and I am excited to host help host a workshop and present on a panel. I also received news of an article publication acceptance, and I submitted a proposal for a food symposium this summer and for a panel proposal for Fem/Rhet 2019 with my writing group for the fall. I enjoy these professional development opportunities and chances to connect with people.

Conference, Conference, Class

This semester seemed to fly past. It feels like yesterday that I was writing my example blog post for my students, "Three Pieces of My Puzzle," and publishing it here. All in all, it was actually a great semester. I was able to work with about 60 pretty awesome students, attend two really inspiring conferences, and even apply myself pretty fully to the job market. Being on the market is almost a full time job in and of itself, and I plan to write a full blog entry detailing my experience in the spring. In this blog entry, I want to talk about the two fall conferences that I attended (one academic and one non) and review my experience teaching three sections of English 1 at Madison College.

Feminisms & Rhetorics 2017

In October of this year, I traveled to Dayton, OH to present at the 11th Biennial Feminisms & Rhetorics conference. I stayed and presented with my awesome writing group, Casie Moreland and Jessica Boykin. The conference was hosted at the University of Dayton from October 4th to 7th. I was there from October 3rd to 6th and then flew home early to attend the other conference.

Like my time at Fem/Rhet in Tempe in 2015, I thoroughly enjoyed this conference. Casie, Jess, and I presented early in the conference at 1:45PM on Wednesday, Oct. 4th, the first official day presentations. We had three attendees at our panel, and after we each presented our material, we had a good conversation with those who attended about our work and future research possibilities. Our panel was called What is Past is Prologue: Women's Contributions to Rhetorics of Social Justice. On this panel, my presentation was called "'We Remain a Complex People:' Accounting for Feminist Rhetorical Practices in a Black Feminist Food Memoir." I discussed Ntozake Shange's 1998 food memoir If I Can Cook/ You Know God Can. I discussed the power of the intricacies of Shange's work, and I talked about how her work contributes to a larger group of African-American women fighting for social justice.

At the conference, I attended several other panels, including the keynote by poet Claudia Rankine. I saw friends and colleagues from Arizona State and Illinois State, as well as other conference friends. It's always a treat to reconnect with those people at conferences across the country. Casie, Jess, and I also explored Dayton a bit in our free time. I can't say it's my favorite city, but we enjoyed our time together writing, talking, and presenting. Always glad to spend time with these special friends.

Bloom Women's Retreat: A Story Unwritten

I left Feminisms & Rhetorics slightly early because I was expected back in Wisconsin for Ridgeway Church's annual Bloom women's retreat. The retreat actually ran from October 5th to 7th, but I was able to be there from the 6th to 7th. I heard the Friday evening keynote speaker Cheri Milton, and I stayed through the Saturday morning session to hear Bethany Peterson speak and then helped clean up. What I saw of the retreat and what I heard from others about it before I got there was so exciting. As part of the leadership team, I helped to plan the Friday afternoon breakout session where we asked women to share parts of their stories with each other. We had leaders positioned at every table to facilitate the conversations, and in our debrief following the retreat the team said that the women responded readily and openly in the sessions, which was so exciting to hear.

The retreat took place at Chula Vista Resort in the WI Dells, and it was cozy setting for our meetings and rooms. Even though I was only able to be part of the retreat for less than 24 hours, I knew all the work that went into the planning with my fellow leadership team members Debbie, Brittany, Bethany, Brianna, Martha, and Melissa, and I was glad to see the retreat was such a success. It was worth skipping out on the last part of Fem/Rhet, a delayed flight, running through O'Hare airport to get my connection, lost luggage, a drive through the rain, and an almost sleepless night to be there! We are already gearing up and planning for next year's retreat!

English 1 Classes

Other than that action packed week of conferencing in October, I have also been able to travel to Indiana couple times this semester and spent some time in Chicago and other parts of Illinois. Otherwise, I have been in Madison teaching my classes and job marketing. I hadn't taught the equivalent of an English 1 course since teaching at English 101 in the fall 2014 semester at Arizona State. I totally revamped the class from when I taught it at ASU, which was definitely beneficial but created extra work for me because I didn't have any previous examples of the projects to show my students. We started the semester with a fairly basic summary essay, so I wrote the example project "Surfer Girls and Sunset Memories" for my students to use as a model for the project. The next project was the rhetorical analysis blog project, which I posted here under "Three Pieces of My Puzzle." We then spent the second half of the semester focusing on the final project, which was an opinion editorial. The editorials were focused around a specific food documentary that I asked the students to watch as a group. I created an editorial called "My Dreams of Sushi" based on the 2011 food documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Other than the final editorial, my students also composed annotated bibliographies (documents citing and discussing sources) and a group presentation.

From the end of the course survey, I was able to gauge my students' reactions to these three major projects, as well as the other various components of the course. Of the 53 students who filled out the survey, 23% said they liked the summary essay the best, 45% said they liked the rhetorical blog the best, and 32% said they liked the opinion editorial the best. I started the semester with 75 students, and I ended the semester with 61 students. At a community college, this is a pretty good retention rate, and I'm glad that over 80% of my students were able to stick with the course.

I ended the semester by asking each student to bring in a quote, lyric, or saying that they liked to our last class. I told them it was a chance to get some easy points as well as an opportunity to leave the course on an inspiring note. I was happily surprised by the range of readings my students brought and how they seemed to actually enjoy the activity. They brought in quotes from Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Einstein, Forrest Gump, Chance the Rapper, the Dalai Lama, Picasso, Bernie Sanders, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Will Smith, Calvin and Hobbes, J.F.K., and three ladies read excerpts of Maya Angelou poems.

For my reading, I chose one of my all time favorite quotes. It is a conversation between Sam and Frodo, characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy series The Lord of the Rings. This conversation takes place as Sam and Frodo journey with the creature Smeagol/ Gollum in the middle of the three books, The Two Towers. In the book, this conversation takes place on pages 362-364, but I like the movie quote (included right) even better because it's a bit more succinct and ends with such a powerful message. I told my students if they remember nothing else from the semester that I hope they remember that "there's some good in this world... and it's worth fighting for."

I need to finish grading 25 final projects, 60 reflection letters, and submit the final grades in Blackboard, but this semester is almost all wrapped up! I plan to send the following graphic with my final email to my students, and I will leave it here as a conclusion as well.

I wish you joy and peace in this holiday season.