Back in Action, but for Captcha

Most of my grading is done until Saturday, when I give an 8:00 in the morning final exam. Yeah, really looking forward to it. I'm now figuring out all the grades to turn in, which will take time but is not so taxing as grading itself.

I even decided to visit blogs today and then found the captcha thing was apparently down.  After writing half a dozen comments on various blogs and then being unable to post them I gave up. Hopefully the verification system will be back up and working tomorrow and I will try any new blog posts that come up.

I'm looking forward to doing a little reading. Haven't had much chance in the past few days. I did write a flash fiction story yesterday. Only 438 words. It came right from a dream I had, with minimal changes. I'm calling it "See Your Night, and Raise You Hell."

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Blogging Absence

Getting my final papers in today (Thursday), and gave two tests this week that I need to grade. Will have another test on Monday. Senior Grades have to be turned in by noon on Tuesday of next week. This is a long way around of saying I'm going to be absent from the blogosphere for a bit, probably until at least Wednesday morning. I trust you will all be well.

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Last Week of School, and some Reviews

The gradepocalypse is about to begin again. We have six class periods left before finals start, but, unfortunately, I have a lot of seniors in my classes. Why does this matter one might ask?  Well, because Xavier does something in the spring semesters that is very tough on faculty members who have a lot of seniors. That is, classes end on April 29, Monday, and Senior grades are due by noon on April 30, Tuesday.   This is so that grades can be cleared before our graduation ceremonies.

This means that during the final week I’m not only teaching classes but administering finals to all seniors. It means all papers are due during the last week. It also means I’m administering makeups because lord forbid everyone take the test when it is scheduled, and lord forbid that they wouldn’t be seniors so that they, too, have to have grades in on the 30^th.  It means that I get a very few days to complete all my grading and turn in grades. And since grades are turned in early, and students get to see them, it means numerous emails and phone calls from students begging for a few more points. Spring is not a good time to be a teacher.

On the upside, though, after April 30^th I will be more than ¾ s done with my grading. I only have one actual exam during finals week. I guess we’ll see if I live long enough to enjoy it. In the meantime, let it be known that I will be making only sporadic appearances on the blogs until after May 1^st.

I should be completed with ‘everything’ by May 12^th and then summer writing begins. I can’t wait.

Let me leave you with a few reviews of various kinds:

The Walking Dead: Graphic Novel series:  I’m getting ready to start volume 8 of The Walking Dead graphic novel series. I’ve been a big fan of the TV series since it first aired. Here are my thoughts on volumes 1-7 of the graphic novels.  The novels aren’t as good as the TV series to me, although had I read them first I might feel differently.  In particular, the absence of key characters in the TV series, Darrell and Merle, takes away some of the enjoyment for me. The Governor is also far less nuanced in the novels and I prefer the TV version.  On the other hand, Michone is a more complete character in the novels than in the TV show, although she has been developing more in the last season. The novels are also quite a bit more graphic, which is saying something considering that the show is pretty graphic as well.  After the first 4 of the novel series I almost abandoned them, but Lana is reading them and bringing them home from the library, and after reading 5-7 I think I’m finally hooked and will follow the novel series to the end as well.

The Dark Knight Rises: Lana and I finally got around to watching this movie and neither of us cared much for it. The Dark Knight was long enough, but it had an amazing Joker, played by Heath Ledger, and everything made sense to me within the context of the film. The Dark Knight Rises had “Bane,” with a great name and a completely lame characterization. It was also very long, and it won’t leave me with a lot of great memories. The two main problems I had with the movie, though.  First, the timing seemed subtly off on everything. It’s hard to explain but things seemed to always happen too late or too early for the plotline. Second, the Bane character just wasn’t used right.  At least this is my opinion.

Doc Savage: Skull Island: How could I resist getting a book in which Doc Savage faces King Kong? This is, of course, a modern continuation of the Doc Savage series, written by Will Murray rather than Lester Dent. That was actually an attraction for me, because while I enjoy the original Doc Savage series, I’m not very enamored of Dent’s writing.  I also have very much enjoyed Murray’s work on the Destroyer series. However, whether by intent or not, Murray’s prose seemed to echo Dent’s pretty closely so I didn’t find myself getting lost in the prose of this tale. The story started out wonderfully by beginning just at the point where the movie, King Kong, left off. A dead Kong’s body must be hauled off and Doc Savage and his crew get the job. After that, we flash back to Doc’s first meeting with Kong, which took place before he’d even reached the age of 21. I didn’t particularly like the flashback aspect but once we flashed back we stayed there so it wasn’t much of a problem. I did enjoy getting to know more about Doc’s history, particularly with his father and his grandfather, although I thought it took a bit longer than necessary to get to Kong’s island. I’d rather have spent some time exploring and detailing the characteristics of the island itself. I won’t give away the ending but will say that I enjoyed it. It’s good fun, just not as much fun as I was hoping it would be. Maybe I was just expecting too much.

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Be Careful of Teaching What You Love: Part Two

This post provides the reasons why I’ve come to dislike teaching my writing class, a class I originally thought I would adore.

First, and least, the class is a LOT of work.  I spend far more time on the writing class than any of my other classes, and much of that extra time involves grading and commenting on student assignments, which is not my favorite part of teaching. No one can learn to write without writing, so I have to get my students to write a lot, and I need to respond to those pieces to help them grow and improve.

Second, I wouldn’t mind the workload if it actually translated into student improvement. Unfortunately, many students seem to pay attention only to the grade rather than the numerous other comments I write on their papers, and they become so focused on grades that they begin to try and “not loose points” rather than trying to get better at the process of writing.  I hear, every semester, “so you focus mainly on APA style in grading?”  Every time it’s asked I say, “no.”  But APA style is the easiest thing for them to fix so they continue to focus on it.  I do have students who take what I say to heart and strive to get better. These students don’t necessarily make the best grades in the class, but they develop the most as writers. But these seem too few and far between, numbering 1 or 2 out of a class of 25 rather than the 10 or 12 I might hope for.

Third, this class evokes arguments with students about almost everything. When you ask an objective question, as in, “who developed the concept of classical conditioning,” there is one specific answer that the students have been taught (Pavlov) and, if they miss it, they won’t argue about it. But it sometimes seems that students want to argue about everything in the writing class.  If they wanted to argue as a basis for learning, that would be one thing. But it’s clear they want to argue so they can try and squeeze out another point or two for their grades. Many of the arguments take the form of, “But that’s what I meant to say…” and they either don’t understand or don’t want to understand that “meaning” to say something is not the same as having said it. At the end of the semester I never fail to have 2 or 3 students, usually ones who got “B’s” but wanted “A’s” come to see me in my office to argue and argue and argue about the situation. Good writing is somewhat subjective, although not completely so, and I stress to the students that I take off most points for objective mistakes and not subjective ones. But even a mark of “awkward sentence” can evoke arguments from students who don’t think it’s awkward.  When I won’t give in to these arguments, the result is often tears. That really makes my day, let me tell you.

Fourth, and worst, plagiarism. I’ve never taught this class yet without having at least 2 out of 20 or so papers plagiarized in the first round. And not just a sentence here and there, but whole passages lifted with no quotation marks and either no references or the wrong references, the latter of which indicates an active attempt at deception. This is despite the fact that I have a lengthy statement about plagiarism on my syllabus. The book talks about it at length. We cover it in class and I have two quizzes with questions on plagiarism in the first third of the semester. There are two inevitable responses that I get from students when this happens: 1). I just messed up on my references, 2). I didn’t realize that was plagiarism. I don’t accept these excuses and indicate to the students that they should drop the class because the likelihood of them passing has now been greatly diminished. Unfortunately, many of the students have reasons why they feel they can’t drop the class, and when I tell them that I will go over future papers with a fine-toothed comb, they say, “OK.” The final result:  usually a poor grade and more tears.

In fifteen years of teaching this class, I’ve had more students cry (at least one a semester, often when caught at plagiarism) than in any other class I’ve taught.  I’ve seen more students argue over each and every grade they make than in any other class. I’ve seen more students look completely bored in class than in any other I’ve taught. I’ve gotten far more frustrated questions (Why is this important? Why do we need to do it that way?) in this class than in any other. I’ve gotten more outbursts of anger than in any other. Is it any wonder that I don’t really look forward to teaching this class?

The negative aspects came to a head for me in Spring 2011 in this class, with a student who went to the chair and the vice president of the university about her unfair “B” grade, which was the “highest” grade she received that semester in any of her classes. She told our chair that she didn’t care so much about herself and her grade, but she just didn’t want future students to have to deal with my unfair policies in the class. The policy in question was me requiring classroom attendance as a portion of their grade for class participation.  After dealing with that, I was the one who felt like crying.  

Be careful of wanting to do what you love. 

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By the way, check out this great review by Keith West of my Under the Ember Star.  This certainly makes me feel better!

Also, a flash fiction piece by me called "Eye Spy" is up over at Beat to a Pulp. Another reason to feel better!

Massive Quantities!

Massive quantities of grading struck last night and this morning. (23 term papers and 32 essays.) You might say I'm having a gradepocalypse, and will certainly be digging out for a while. We also have faculty interviews today and Monday. That means I won't be able to visit blogs much for the next few days, probably until at least Monday or Tuesday. I will keep you all in mind, however.

In the meantime, the exceptional Ty Johnston,  over at life on the written page has reviewed the first two of my Fiction Techniques series of ebooks. And he said nice things!  I hope you'll get a chance to check it out. And have a look at Ty's own offerings of both print and ebooks. He's got a range of items listed HERE.  I've mostly read his fantasy stuff, which is excellent.

Take care.

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Mid-terms in. Caught up on Grading for Now

Wow! That was the longest marathon grading session I’ve had in several years. Teaching the writing class is a tremendous investment of time. Plus, the way that Mardi Gras fell in association with mid-terms meant that I had to give two tests in the same week that I got the latest set of writing papers. On top of that I came down with a pretty bad cold that has had me feeling pretty miserable.

I’m glad to have the grading done and have my mid-terms turned in, and I’m feeling a bit better on the cold front. It’s still going to be a busy week catching up with everything I put off while I was grading, but at least I should be able to get a bit more sleep and have a little breathing room.

Now to try and get back into the swing of blogging, and back to doing a little bit of writing. Not one word of new fiction has been completed since the last Sunday in February. I did a little polishing on a rough drafted story but that was about it. I hate to be forced into such long breaks because it sucks so much momentum out of me. Such is the curse of the working man.

I can see from the number of posts in my Google Reader, though, that it’s gonna take me a little while to get caught up. I’ll start tonight but probably won’t finish. Missed everyone.
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One Test Down, Novel Spaces Today

First round of grading done. More to come later. But I'm off to visit blogs today. I'm over at Novel Spaces today if you get a chance to visit.

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Starting and Stopping

Three days! After my last round of grading I had three glorious days to work on Wraith of Talera. Since it had been a couple of months since the last time I worked on it, most of those three days was spent in a careful rereading and revision of material already completed. I had to refresh my memory as to where I was in the story. Right about the time I got back to “new” material, mid-terms hit. I managed to get some needed plotting done, but not much in the way of new writing. Since then I’ve been grading. Just grading.

Starting and stopping is one of the hardest things to deal with in on a novel length project. And, unfortunately, that’s the nature of the teaching biz. You have moments of down time, then moments of insanity. And this semester I’m teaching a non-fiction writing class, which means a lot more paper grading than in most semesters. There’s always in academia, in addition, the need to do at least a couple of scholarly type writing projects a year. Those provide more interference with any long-term fiction goal.

But it’s not just the academic job that interferes. I had a couple of really nice opportunities to do some short fiction and nonfiction. They were things I wanted to do and that were good for my career, so the novel went on the back burner. For too long.

I wish I could end this post with a lesson I’ve learned, or a technique for dealing with slow downs. Ain’t gonna happen. I’ve got more grading tomorrow, and on Monday I’ll have a pile of late papers to grade so that I can get midterms turned in by high noon Tuesday. Right now I’m pretty tired and am going to bed. I’ll try to make my blog rounds tomorrow, but Monday and Tuesday are likely to be no shows for me. After that I might get back to a semblance of normalcy for a while. Then it’ll be final exams and all the hassle surrounding graduation.

Just gotta hang on. Gotta hang on.
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A Piece of the Action

The slaughter at the desk is over. For the moment. Slowly, the academic warrior lowers his mighty pen while around him pools of red (ink) lie drying beneath the harsh light. He sighs, stretching cramped muscles, and rubs bloodshot eyes. Before him rests the carnage of the battle, student papers marked and scarred. In his small black book he records the roll call of the grades.

For a moment, a wan smile flickers across his worn visage. He thinks of victory, of peace returned to this war-torn land. But in the distance he knows that more foes gather. He knows that there will be only a brief hiatus before the fighting resumes. And this time the enemy will bring their full power to bear on his pitiful defenses. More finals are coming. And this time his strength is less. This time his reserves are exhausted. He broods upon the rising battle.

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And Announcing: The following comes from Christine Eldin, who is going to be having a week's worth of fun for writers and readers on her blog coming up soon. As you can see from the schedule, I'll be involved, as will many other fine writers. Check it out if you get a chance.

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Dear authors, writers, anonymous editors, and agent hotties,

I would like to invite you to Author's Week for a week of contests and fun and free books! Author's Week will be held on my blog from May 3 through May 9:

Festivities will kick off on Saturday May 3 with an Oldies but Goodies Contest. I will have funny questions about the following authors who have supported my promotions in the past (cool prizes also!!)

Elaine Alexander DEATH AT DEACON POND
Mary Cunningham CURSE OF THE BAYOU
Evil Editor NOVEL DEVIATIONS
Edna Cabcabin Moran THE SLEEPING GIANT
John Elder Robison LOOK ME IN THE EYE
Patricia Wood LOTTERY

May 5 - May 9 will feature the following authors giving away books and making appearances on my blog. Come chat, make jokes, win prizes!!!

Monday, May 5: Charles Allen Gramlich “Swords of Talera”
Tuesday, May 6: Holly Kennedy "The Silver Compass"
Wednesday, May 7: Daniel Tomasulo "Confessions of a Former Child"
Thursday, May 8: Sandra Cormier "The Space Between"
Friday, May 9: Stacia Kane "Personal Demons"

**If you are able to mention my Author's Week on your blog sometime between now and May 2, please send me an email. I will put your name in a hat and pick a random winner who will receive a nice gift from Dubai.**
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