BECAUSE I CAN
TEACH
© Susanna Rich,
2020
Blog
George Bernard Shaw famously said, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Adam Grant's reply was, "Those who can do, can't teach." Because I Can Teach is a series of essays that celebrates teaching as an art that one must learn and develop. The posts range across a wide variety of topics such as these: writing, teaching, the teaching of
writing, literacy, media, poetry, literature, rhetoric, Shakespeare, classroom
etiquette. The blog anticipates printed collections, the first of which will be entitled Words, Words Words:
Literacy and Learning.
1. March,
2014/January 25, 2014: Media Freeze:
Disavoiding the Void
2. February
1, 2014: Void, Vacuum, Silence, Blank
3. February
8, 2014: You, I, We
4. February
14, 2014: Damning with Praise
5. February
22, 2014: Landing the Helicopter
6. March
1, 2014: A Monarch Shmoops off Cliffs,
Sending off Sparks—The Prison and Misprision of Paraphrase
7. March
8, 2014: “Basically” Means “Generally”: How Not to Mean What You Say
8. March
14, 2014: Teaching on the Edge of “I Don’t Know”
9. March
24, 2014: Yes/No, So-So What, It Depends—Intellectual and Ethical
Development
10. March
29, 2014: The Bliss of Marking Papers
11. April
5, 2014: Teaching to the Test*: Duh?
12. April
19, 2014: Training the Elephant
13. May
1, 2014: Teacher on Mute
14. May
12, 2014: Knowing By Heart
15. January
30, 2015: Write a Poem a Day
16. January 23, 2018:
The Rude Student: Preparing the Way
17. January 31, 2018: Scrolling,
Scrolling
18. February 7, 2018: Prompts,
Proctors, and Pornography
19. February 13, 2018: First
Words First
20. February 19, 2018: The Tree of Knowledge: Binary Oppositions
21. February 25, 2018: “You’re Not Confused”
22. March 4, 2018: Dailiness: Showing Up for Yourself
23. March 21, 2018: Writing Reviews
24. March 29, 2018: Teaching from the Heart: A Pyramid of Needs
25. April 8, 2018: PagiNation: A Fable & Meditation
26. April 16, 2018; isSlapped:with;liGhtninG: Punctuation and Meaning
27. April 24, 2018: Punctuation-at-a-Glance
28. May 1, 2018: Plagiarism in the Digital Age
29. May 8, 2018: One Paper Clip: Detail, Design, Depth
30. September
22, 2018: Journals, Diaries, and Kitty
31. October
4, 2018: The Adventures of Journaling
32. October
7, 2018: Rescue for “Lie” and “Lay”
33. October
13, 2018: Attacking Literature: How We Talk
34. October
16, 2018: “Line Endings: The Acrobats of Poetry”
35. October
21, 2018: “Will it be on the test?: Trust and Joy in the Classroom
36. October
23, 2018: “Playing Literature Like Music: (1) Introduction”
37. October
30, 2018: “The Metaphysics of Testing”
38. November
4, 2018: “Stealth, Over-Ride, Ambush, Surprise: Write Now”
39. November
6, 2018: “’Chew upon this: Digesting Quotes”
40. November
15, 2018: “Flintstoning: Where Does it Start?”
41. November
25, 2018: “Spiraling In: A Moebius Model for Creativity”
42. December
3, 2018: “Propping Up Characters: Staging in the Classroom”
43. December
6, 2018: “Term Papers vs. Essays:
Entering the Conversation”
44. “First A.I.D. for Writers”
45. Superstars
Present: The Benefits of Term-End Performances
46. January 22, 2019: “Index to Posts”
47. January 26, 2019:
“Boredom and Creativity”
48. February 3, 2019:
“Intentional Fallacies: The Literary Séance”
49. February 10, 2019: “Left Brain/Right
Brain”
50. February 17, 2019:
“Reading versus Studying: A Continuum”
51. March 3, 2019:
“Martha and Mary in the Classroom: House vs. Home”
52. March 16, 2019: “Evaluating
Teachers: What’s Important”
53. March 19, 2019:
“Writers’ Wrodeo: Workshop Whoas and Wonders”
54.
March 21, 2019: “Why Write?: Knowing When and
How”
55.
March 26, 2019: “Story! Not Plod: Don’t be
Thorough: Be Deep!”
56.
April 3, 2019: “Can I Ask You a
Question?”: Dominance in the Classroom
57.
April 9, 2019: “What the Heck Kind of
Question is That?”
58.
April 16, 2019: “Grade Junkie Rehab: Benefit
versus Credit.”
59.
April 23, 2019: “A New Day for Clichés”
60.
April 23, 2019: “Fishing for Knowledge”
61.
April 30, 2019: “How Many Pages Do You Want?”
62.
May 7, 2019: “’I gather Paradise’”:
Experiential Learning
63.
May 14, 2019: “Classroom Seating: War Zone or
Campfire?”
64.
May 23, 2019: “Why Poetry Matters to History”
65.
September 7, 2019: “Why Are You Here?”
66.
September 15, 2019: “Poetry and Popcorn:
Coming Back to Our Senses”
67.
January 12, 2020: “Digital Gods: How Devices
Turn Us into Robots”
68.
January 18, 2020: “Break the ‘I’m Sorry’ Habit”
69.
January 19, 2020: “Poetry by the Numbers: (1)
What Numbers Can Mean”
70.
January 21, 2020: “Poetry by the Numbers: (2)
Stanzas”
71.
January 26, 2020: “Poetry by the Numbers: (3)
Rhythm, Culture, and Meaning”
72.
January 26, 2020: “Angels Cards: Spells and
Incantations”
74. January 31, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity: (2) How
Much?”
75. January 31, 2020: “Friends,
Factions, Fights: Classroom Feng Shui”
76. February 3, 2020: “The Dunno Effect: What ‘I Don’t Know’
Means”
77. February 6. 2020: “Ways of Learning: Information, Skills,
Interpre-tation, Experimentation”
78. February 8, 2020: “The Five-Paragraph Essay: The Fallacy
of Trifurcation”
79. February 8, 2020:
“To be a great part of your title”: How to Write Them Catchy
80. February 11, 2020: “Who’s in Charge: Are you Proactive or
Reactive?”
81. February 15, 2020: “Titulographobia: The Fear of Writing
Titles”
82. February 16, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity: (3)
Survival”
83. February 16, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity: (4)
Security”
84. February 17, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity: (5) Power”
85. February 20, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity: (6) Love”
86.
February 20, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity:
(7) Communicate”
87.
February 24, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity:
(8) The Wall”
88.
February 27, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity:
(9) Create”
89.
February 29, 2020: “Journal for Authenticity:
(10) Be”
90.
February 29, 2020: “Critical Approaches to
Literature: Author, Text, Reader”
91.
March 2, 2020: “Boston Has Six Letters: The
Use/Mention Distinction”
92.
March 3, 2020: “Characters: (1) Type Casting”
93.
March 12, 2020: “Characters: (2) ‘By Any
Other Name’”
94. March 15, 2020: “Play Literature Like Music: (2) Sound Frequencies”
100. April 2, 2020: "Come they of noble family?" Genealogy and Shakespeare's History Plays
101. April 9, 2020: “Bless the Moment: Poetry Here,
Poetry Now”
94. March 15, 2020: “Play Literature Like Music: (2) Sound Frequencies”
95. March 16, 2020: Playing Literature Like
Music: (3) Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle..."
96. March 23, 2020: Characters: (3) “Where Lies
Your Text?” Deconstruction
97. March 27, 2020: Characters: (4) Development
in Shakespeare’s Comedies
98. March 28, 2020: “After Great Pains”: What’s
Lost in Translation
99. March 31, 2020: “Come, here’s the map”:
Charting Shakespeare’s Genres
102. April 13, 2020: “Poetry by the Numbers: (5)
Shadow Fingers and Revision
103. April 15, 2020: “Poetry by the Numbers: (6)
Sonnets
104. April 16, 2020: “Much To Do To Do Shakespeare:
Strategies for Exploration
and Interpretation
Since taking this class one of the requirements was to create 10 blog posts to Dr. Rich’s blog. Sometimes she would give us required ones as a class or required ones individually. When I first started class and she told us about this assignment I was a little thrown off. I wasn't entirely sure how these blog post would help us understand Shakespeare and be able to connect that with what we are learning. Then I proved myself wrong. By creating these blog posts and reading through them I am learning way more than I have in some of my classes. Each blog post is about something different, but yet they all connect. All the blog posts are unique and help students see from a different point of teaching. For example: the blog post on “What the Heck kind of Question is that?” is an amazing tool to use in any class for any paper. These questions will us help digest and understand what we are writing. Another example: “Left or Right Brain” which is one of my favorite posts, helps us to see and open our eyes to our own minds and creativity. To look at ourselves outside our body and to figure out who we truly are as writers and what we truly want to be as writers. The blog posts might just be another assignment to certain students, but deep down they have no idea each post is helping them expand their minds to different types of writing or even their own writing.
ReplyDeleteI find this interesting because through most of my writing studies experiences, I have been taught to paraphrase and summarize. It becomes difficult because I begin to question what exactly does the teacher want in the summary, and am I including the right aspects? It becomes a battle of what do I believe the important information is to be included, or what will my teacher want in the summary. Not only are they boring to write, taking pieces out because it is quick summary sometimes, I feel, changes the narrative of the writing. Writing summaries or paraphrases can be helpful in some cases, but overall I have never found them helpful in my journey of English studies. I find myself going back to the piece I summarized to look through the entire things anyway. It’s an assignment that I have always dreaded and just wanted to get it over with. I do find annotating the entire piece more helpful than summarizing. I am able to pick out certain points in the text that I feel are important, and pick out the ideas that I want to write about. I feel it helps organize my ideas for when I begin writing my draft of a paper. Annotating may not work for every paper, and can be a tedious task. When writing something more creative, I force myself to stay away from the academic status quo of annotating and summarizing. It is not an easy task since that is what I have been taught and told to do for years.
ReplyDeleteParaphrasing was drilled into my head during high school, we HAD to do it. Teachers tried to justify it as being helpful, but it was anything but that. It was extremely frustrating, whatever I wrote was meant more for my teacher than myself. (This was especially painful when we had to read Beowulf). Even with summaries I felt like I was never doing the literature justice. How am I supposed to summarize The Scarlet Letter without going on and on about how much I love it?! Despite whether or not I liked what we were assigned to read, I felt like summarizing was not only difficult, but quite frankly, pointless. Anyone can paraphrase or summarize now, we have access to hundreds of them online. I completely agree that these two forms of writing, along with annotations, are a way of policing students. Reading this blog you directly called out a teacher of mine who (very intensely) instructed us to do these. I thank you for that because I am still "shook" from her actions, and from having her as a teacher in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI really love the connection between paraphrasing and carrying a heavy load. Paraphrasing is something I’ve definitely been guilty of when writing papers. But just like carrying a load after awhile you get tired of it and just want to drop it. There is no getting lost in your own writing with paraphrasing because it is not your own. You’re just regurgitating what you already read in a way that it passes by as not copy and paste. I kept looking at the clock at time dragged on while my fingers just mindlessly typed words. No real thought but into it, no depth.
ReplyDeleteI haven't found an issue with paraphrasing or summarizing. I feel like personally each class or assignment serves its own purpose. The idea of paraphrasing resembling carrying a load onto paper is true, I can somewhat agree. I personally feel like it's what you're paraphrasing and the interest that you have with it. When writing something for the liking of your teacher, one is always going to do what they feel wants to be read. I think that paraphrasing something you're actually interested in is going to come out more organic and natural. It's more so about what you say when you paraphrase, and does it get right to the point or are you beating around the bush and just adding in detail and wording that isn't necessary. I believe naturally when someone doesn't want to write about something that they will always find it to be time consuming and dreadful. Summarizing is a way to see if a student understood what was read. If it was not understood then it is only right that summarizing be difficult for them to do. I would agree like the rest of my peers if i actually struggled with these methods but again it is how you look at it. At the end of the day, being deep and thorough are two different things that should be taught more.
ReplyDeleteI have realized after reading this post that paraphrasing and summarizing works has become the easy way out. Instead of taking time to pay attention to what is work is saying you skim through, learn all the basic parts but not the little details. For years teachers just wanted to know “what is the book about?” and I would reply with a condensed, water down version of what happened. Instead of giving a deep thought on whatever I was asked to read I gave an answer that would satisfy but, it lacked anything substantial.
ReplyDeleteParaphrasing and summarizing have always been a way to be able to pretend I truly knew what was going on instead of taking the time to be precise. This is something I really want to work on. I don’t want to cheap myself out of important information any longer.
I love the connection of paraphrasing and carrying a heavy load. This was also comical to read as it had a lot of imagery.
ReplyDelete