The Devotional Lyric
This class intimidates me: senior capstone class, smart classmates, academic superstar professor. And it freezes me into inaction on any assignment. I vacillate between several different topics, unable to choose and when I get to writing it I wonder if it's any good at all, put it off too late and generally panic.
M'Kayla has suggested that part of it is this toxic culture of academic competition. We all want to be top of the class. So why does this class scare me while the honors class where I am as like to hear "What's the difference between a novel and an essay?" as "Didn't some of the Greek comedians like Philemon have a similar telological approach?" drives me to check my email and blog during class?
Probably because I have to care about my Senior Capstone Of MY MAJOR BEFORE GRADUATE SCHOOL WHERE I WILL BE TESTED TO THE LIMIT TO SEE IF I HAVE THE ACADEMIC METTLE TO MAKE IT IN THE WORLD OF THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MLA CONFERENCE and not just a civilization course I need to graduate.
Good grief.
M'Kayla has suggested that part of it is this toxic culture of academic competition. We all want to be top of the class. So why does this class scare me while the honors class where I am as like to hear "What's the difference between a novel and an essay?" as "Didn't some of the Greek comedians like Philemon have a similar telological approach?" drives me to check my email and blog during class?
Probably because I have to care about my Senior Capstone Of MY MAJOR BEFORE GRADUATE SCHOOL WHERE I WILL BE TESTED TO THE LIMIT TO SEE IF I HAVE THE ACADEMIC METTLE TO MAKE IT IN THE WORLD OF THE UNIVERSITY AND THE MLA CONFERENCE and not just a civilization course I need to graduate.
Good grief.
Comments
"Stunned, exhilarated, gratified, vindicated, proud like a mother hen
A few days ago (Feb 19), I posted about an assignment I'd given my devotional lyric students: to write a devotional lyric, and an essay explaining why it was a devotional lyric. And I am eager to report that their poems are SO JAWDROPPINGLY FANTASTIC that I may do a toe-dance in class next week. The poems are smart, sometimes metaphysical, sometimes heartbreaking, revelatory, and more sensitive to the theories of lyric and of devotional writing that we've been studying for lo these many weeks than I could have hoped. Each student's essay indicates that the successes of the lyrics--the stuff that works really well poetically and argumentatively--is totally intended, and has arisen out of our discussions. In short, I'm feeling very, very pedagogically hot- rocking right now."
It’s nice to know what professors say to your face. But sometimes it’s even nicer to know what they say behind your back.
Dan Muhlestein
I still hold true to what I said this morning; I've been thinking about it for weeks, and you got the readers digest version. Probably because the long version would have overwhelmed you - and made you late for class to boot. Next time I see you, I'll give you the readers digest version of my bizarre take on compliments.
Okay, I'll just focus on the good.
Seriously, though, it sounds like a case of progression to me. Earlier in the semester, she was unimpressed. Now, she is. She hasn’t changed, so you must have.
on a different note: dr. muhlestein, i don't know you, but it strikes me as strange that you'd be willing to discuss one of your colleagues with students in such a public forum--and in a way that could cast the professor as harsh or inflexible, which i think your comments do. it seems to me that it's one thing to give individual advice in a one-on-one setting and quite another to do so on the comment board of a student blog. i mean no disrespect to you, but to be plain, i think it's unprofessional.
I certainly didn’t intend for it to seem that way. I think that she is a fabulous scholar and teacher, and I think that her willingness to push her students really hard is one of her greatest strengths.
I mentioned how sparse she is with praise because in an earlier post mhl talked about how hard it can be to interpret a professor’s complements. My point was that when someone as thrifty in her praise as this professor is says something really complementary in her blog, it can be taken seriously, at face value.
My emphasis on her rigor was not meant as critique, but rather as praise. I wish that more professors taught like she does. And believe me, she doesn’t need my advice (lol). She’s the superstar, not me.
I think that you’re absolutely right, at least if I were saying something derogatory about her or her class. But it seems like when you are saying something good about a fellow professor or her students, you ought to shout it to the rooftops. It also seems like a good idea to pass along praise when you hear it (or, in this case, read it).
It’s always hard to know how to react to student blogs. I don’t read many and respond to even fewer. In this particular case, since I’ve known mlh for years and have just finished up a second class with her, it seemed like a good idea to point out what a great job her professor thought her class was doing. It’s the tough part of the semester, after all . . . .
I can see, though, how someone might interpret the comment differently than I had intended it. That’s one of the authentic dangers of blogs, and one of the risks we all take when we comment in a forum that feels more private than it is. It really is a brave new world out here on the web, you know? And it’s good to be reminded of that sometimes.
Maybe I can be called a "pundit" now.