The CEA Forum (College English Association, Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Discussing Comedy: An Interrogative Approach
No full textRather than propose or endorse a single theory of comedy, this essay explores a wide variety of implications in sometimes-conflicting ideas on the subject. It groups questions under such topics as types of comedy, plot, social morality, and identity. These questions are drawn from a wide range of viewpoints both ancient and modern. It concludes with a brief checklist of questions for analyzing comedy
The Big Question: Curriculum Reform, Assessment and the Survival of the English Major
No full textThis essay has been one of the hardest professionally to write as it documents some very personal and professional soul-searching that involved myself, many of my colleagues, and the students in our department over the span of four years. When I first presented our initial reform attempts at the 2010 CEA in San Antonio, much of this paper was simply about our new major which emerged as a result of assessing our failing program and negotiating the politics of reforming the English Major. We were proud to have rolled out a new version of the English major that seemed in better standing with the national trend towards student-centered learning. But since then, a number of local and national developments have lent urgency for further reflection and even more drastic changes to the “way we do business.†This essay will lay bare the emotionally challenging and often convoluted process by which one small program in a rural community in the Hawaiian Islands is continually having to re-invent itself at a critical time when there seems to be a cadre of setbacks and pressures, both internal and external, that will inevitably impact the future viability of literary studies as we know it
Music in the First-Year Writing Classroom
No full text“Primary research counts, but we don’t teach it.†This was the sentiment, if these were not the actual words, of Lynée Lewis Gaillet in her critique of the traditional composition curriculum at the spring 2011 annual meeting of the College English Association in St. Petersburg (“Everyday Archivesâ€). Gaillet proposes an alternative to furthering students’ sometimes unnecessary reliance on secondary research. In her own course, she sends students not into library stacks or electronic databases to begin their writing projects, but rather to special collections and archives. Her approach teaches students sincerity, originality, and independence in their writing. By situating her course within primary source investigation, Gaillet aspires to train “scholars who have something original, interesting, and pointed to add to academic conversations†(“Extending the Vertical†2)
Review of A Buddhist in the Classroom
No full textSid Brown’s A Buddhist in the Classroom delves deep into “the intimacy of teaching†(xi), a term encompassing the web of activities, goals, and personalities that comprise any classroom. Because Brown is not only a Buddhist, but a religious studies professor, readers of CEA Forum will have to particularize Brown’s thoughts for the English classroom. However, A Buddhist in the Classroom contains a useful introduction to Buddhism and its practical application as equipment for the social, emotional, and interpersonal aspects of teaching. Additionally, the book is filled with extended narratives of active learning and critical thinking activities based upon Buddhist precepts, and the book is rife with stories of resistant students, mildly burnt-out instructors, and frustrated lesson plans salvaged over time through Brown’s Buddhist strategies
The Viability of the English Major in the Current Economy
No full textIn an April, 2012 Wall Street Journal article titled “Wealth or Waste? Rethinking the Value of a Business Major,†national reporter Melissa Korn explores an intriguing fact: the business major, the most popular major on college campuses for over 30 years and the discipline believed to be most economically viable by prospective college students and their parents, is in crisis. Employers and corporate recruiters, Korn reports, increasingly believe that business degrees “focus too much on the nuts and bolts of finance and accounting and don’t develop enough critical thinking and problem-solving skills through long essays, in-class debates, and other hallmarks of liberal-arts courses.†This perceived lack of critical thinking and communication skills among business majors is causing many recruiters to seek “candidates with a broader academic background†who exhibit “flexible think[ing]†and “exposure to multiple disciplines†(Korn). Ironically, however, while business employers and corporate recruiters are seeking broadly-educated graduates trained in critical thinking, analysis, and communication, universities are rapidly expunging many humanities majors from their curricula and are shifting their course offerings towards more vocational and technical tracks. In a New York Times article titled “Making College ‘Relevant’,†Kate Zernicke reports that during the recent “Great Recession,†colleges and universities have struggled to make their liberal arts and humanities majors seem relevant, viable, and attractive to prospective students and to parents who want to see evidence of a clear correspondence between a chosen major and future gainful employment. Some universities have cut their philosophy and classics departments altogether, and most colleges and universities have had to scrutinize intensely their curricula to determine whether they match perceived trends in enrollment and job placement (Zernicke)
Promoting Research in an Undergraduate Shakespeare Course
No full textThis essay concerns the methods I use in my 300-level Shakespeare course at Winthrop University to foster research worthy of frequent conference presentation and occasional publication. In short, my approach is to provide suitable topics and to require multiple stages in the composition and research process. The results, I have discovered, are sometimes phenomenal and clearly superior to the work students did when I first taught the course at Winthrop. I begin, therefore, by contrasting the first version of my Shakespeare course with my more recent efforts
Jumping the Connection Gap: Helping Students Build a Bridge between Major and Career
No full textHow do we impress upon our students the value of ethical writing?—of community involvement?—of civic activism? We must do more than prepare them for their roles as community members and future employees; we must show them in what way they are prepared, as well as how and why to maintain community connections. The following paper details the creation of a pilot course and its revision into a repeatedly offered 200-level English class intended to close the gap between students and the wider business and civic community
Deceptively Simple: Writing\u27s Answer to the Mobius Strip
No full textIntegrating writing instruction into the content-area classroom poses a variety of challenges for instructors at all levels. Beyond the need to embrace a new skill set involving writing instruction, there is the resistance of students (and faculty) who find a disconnection between content-area and literacy learning. Developing a method for engaging reticent (sometimes even antagonistic) students in discipline-specific writing is simpler than one might imagine if we privilege less the literacy product and more the literacy learner--if we, in short, begin from the student\u27s perspective. In teaching writing, I do just that with what I reductively call the "Stick Student." I think of the Stick Student as writing\u27s answer to the Mobius Strip, a tool deceptive in its elegant simplicity
Equality of Bias: An Approach to Teaching Feminism in the Composition Classroom
No full textThe author explores the place of feminism in teaching through the lens of rhetorical dexterity, providing a case study
No Longer a Spinning Satellite: Designing a Collaborative Faculty Community through Qualitative Assessment
No full textWhile our move to qualitative assessment may not seem significant (again I started not only apathetic but hostile in my approach to assessment), it really did put enthusiasm back into our group. Before we had cringed to stay 10 minutes past quitting time; now we were coming in early on Saturday mornings to voluntarily complete work. The group, no longer at odds with the approach and really believing in what we were doing, also became a cohesive unit where we supported and encouraged each other. We found that assessment could be something that not only showed us what we were doing in our classes, but also was an enriching experience that opened up issues in teaching and writing we had not sought out before