State policy “impeding student success” at California community colleges

I came across this report on California Community Colleges which concludes that while California is successful in removing barriers so that students can enter college, it is failing when it comes to helping students complete college (whether a degree or a certificate). “Of the 60 percent [of students] who are seeking a degree or [...]

Teaching Harry Potter and fantasy literature

Three articles I got from the recent NCTE newsletter:
Cruz, Maria Colleen, and Kate B. Pollock. “Stepping into the Wardrobe: A Fantasy Genre Study.” Language Arts 81.3 (January 2004): 184–195. [downloaded a copy]
Wallace, David L., and Tison Pugh. “Teaching English in the World: Playing with Critical Theory in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series.” English Journal [...]

first reactions to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Okay, I probably should be doing other things, but here are a couple of initial reactions to Deathly Hallows. I finished the book last night just after midnight. Three days “buried” in a book that has so much to do with death and resurrection (the figurative pointing to the literal)… Appropriate!
I read a couple of [...]

Gen 1.5 writers

I don’t know how many Hispanic Gen 1.5 students I’ll be working with at OSU, but I don’t want to lose track of some of the articles I’ve found/used over the last couple years.
Barr, Linda. “Culture: Expectations and Differences, Generation 1.5 Students” in “Tutoring the ESL Student” an online workshop by ATP (Association of Tutoring [...]

Computer Use still most common reason students come to YVCC Writing Center

I’ll be curious, in my newest incarnation as a GTA at OSU’s CWL (wow, is that alphabet soup or what), to see the difference between a Writing Center that’s very much also a computer lab (as ours is here at YVCC) and one that’s not, one that concentrates almost solely on consultations.
Did a quick Tutortrac [...]

tonight! tonight! I’ll have the book tonight!

I probably feel as excited about reading the final Harry Potter book as I’ve ever felt before for anything else. It’s a lot like the feeling I used to get when I was nine or ten, while I laid awake in the dark on Christmas eve. The books are that good. We — Harry Potter [...]

“I don’t need to take notes. The vicious cruelty of your words has branded them into my mind forever.”

Just came across this cartoon, from timetowrite.com.
Yikes!
I could start a “what not to do as a consultant” category.

Google’s sexist spellchecker

One Monday evening in May, when Chanel and I were working our evening shift at the Writing Center, Chanel found, via Feministing, this reference to Google’s spell checker being a tad bit sexist (apparently!):
When you search “she invented” on Google, it asks you, “Did you mean ‘he invented?’”
Then, as Chanel put it,
Laura and I searched [...]

“you must embrace joy as a moral obligation”

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation. — Andre Gide
Jane used this quote in one of her sermons back in April or May (if I remember right), and I immediately looked it up because it [...]

incoherent subordination?????

This summer I’ve been working with a Gen 1.5 student whose struggles with English are different from most of the other Gen 1.5ers I’ve worked with. I myself am struggling with how to describe her struggles.
It’s not so much that she uses faulty predication as incoherent predication or may be incoherent subordination.??
Almost every time [...]