David Foster Wallace’s mind-blowing creative nonfiction syllabus: “This does not mean an essayist’s goal is to ‘share’ or ‘express herself’ or whatever feel-good term you got taught in high school”

Who wouldn't click on this headline? 

Illustration of David Foster Wallaee from
moreintelligentlife.com/content/arts/infinite-jester#_

I certainly couldn't help myself, and I was rewarded with a real gem. 

David Foster Wallace, is an incredible author, but also, unfortunately, another creative type who struggled with depression and took his own life (in 2008). Now I just wish I would have had the opportunity to be a student of his.

Be sure to click through for more, but I've included a few of my favorite lines below (emphasis added):

"This class operates on the belief that you’ll improve as a writer not just by writing a lot and receiving detailed criticism but also by becoming a more sophisticated and articulate critic of other writers’ work."

"For writers: One reason to double-space your essays and to give them generous margins is to give us space to write marginalia. For readers: Make sure that your margin comments are legible and lucid, and that they’re directed to the author; the manuscript copy is not the place to jot notes to yourself. Example: “It’s not clear how this sentence supports the conclusion you draw in the next paragraph” would be OK to write in the margin, whereas “Sentence sucks — make sure to ridicule author for this in class” would not."

How often do you see the word marginalia in print? Not Often Enough!

DFW's syllabus, originally published on Salon.com

"Electronic mail" :: Oh how far we've come!

Found this in some of the reading for my Teaching Writing class, and just had to share. Also, see above the highlighted portion where he talks about mimeographing and how teachers should lobby hard to get a laser printer purchased for their school.

Because of this, you might not think this dead white guy has much to say about modern education in America, but, believe it or not, so many of his ideas about student-centered and student-directed learning follow along very closely with the curriculum of both of my other classes: Intro to Tech for Educators and Educational Psych. Turns out James Moffatt was actually quite ahead of his time when he published, in 1968, his truly seminal text Student-Centered Language Arts, K-12.

So it's OK to giggle when he warns that photocopying might be expensive, but I'm glad I didn't give up on him then. He really is full of worthwhile things to say about how we should teach writing in our classrooms.

Fall Semester II classes

One of the best things about Webster is that many of their education classes are eight-weeks long instead of the traditional 16. Not only will that enable me to take 18 (or more!) credit hours each semester, but I was also able to begin my graduate school program as soon as my husband, Rich, and I were settled in St. Louis.

So now, here I am, halfway through my first session for three classes:

• Teaching Writing
• Introduction to Technology for Educators
• Educational Psychology

Each class takes place in the evening and is four hours long -- so three nights per week I am in class, which has definitely taken some getting used to. I always have to make sure I'm much more productive on the weekend, so that I can focus on school during the week, and I definitely am missing the time with Rich, but it's all going to be worth it. And, hey, if I'm going to be a high school teacher, I definitely have to get used to working long hours.

 I'll be sure to post more about each class as this blog progresses!

P.S. Did you know that Webster's mascot is something called a Gorlok? That's even weirder than a Billiken!

Who I am and why I'm writing this blog

I'm beginning this blog not just because it fulfills a class requirement, or as a way to update those who are interested in my graduate school adventures, but also as a repository for educational resources and articles I have run into that fascinate me.

But first, a bit about me and how, as a 29 year old, I came to be back in school after a more than seven year foray into the professional world.

Me at the Notting Hill Bookshop in London, England

For years I was unsure of what I wanted to be "when I grew up," but I knew I loved to write and to read. And with the ability to get in-state tuition to one of the best journalism schools in the country, as with Mizzou, I sort of fell into that major (I've heard this as a common refrain from other peers).

In some ways, I loved it: the frenetic pace of a deadline-oriented profession, the collaborative environment surrounded by some of the best young writers and editors, the Pulitzer Prize-winning professors! But a reporter by nature, I am not. I love to do research, but I found that I wasn't so great at getting pounding the pavement to get to the heart of a story.

And so I ended up in internal communications at Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Chicago: a nice-paying gig in an academic environment with some of the best coworkers a young graduate could ask for. I was as happy as I could be, but when my now-husband had an opportunity in Kansas City, we loaded up the U-Haul (yuck!) and made a new home for ourselves.

We made wonderful, lifelong friends in those five years, but career satisfaction eluded me. Stuck in a tiny cubicle all day without motivation to do really good work did not make me a happy girl. New plans, a new career began to take shape.

Both my mom and my paternal grandmother were teachers, and I started to think: "Why not me?" Maybe not the best of reasons to embark on a career change, but it started me on a path of more than two years of research and planning.

 I love to teach -- perhaps to an annoying degree! -- in my everyday life, large groups of teenagers aren't as horrifying to me as they seem to be to others, I feel as though I'm just the type of person with the tenacity to make a difference (but also the type to not let it get to me too much if I can't), and over the years I've grown very passionate about inequality and urban education issues.

After moving back to St. Louis (where I grew up) the pieces all finally came together: I was accepted to Webster University, and am enrolled in the first three classes of my Masters of Education in Teaching (MAT) program.

With any luck, and likely a lot of hard work, I'll enter the teaching profession on a full-time basis in the fall of 2016. Wish me luck!