The Eagle Has Landed
Well, not maybe landed - and it's not an eagle - but I did get a draft of the OMB in the mail to the publisher on Friday. So that's something. It's only a draft (after the previous 1,000,000 drafts of each chapter, of course) and there will be revisions, but it's off. Now, I await the comments of reviewers. Hopefully they won't say, "What? What is this drivel?" And as I wait, there is oh, so much more to attend to... but I won't go into that here.
What I will go into, a bit, is praise for the intrepid Inside Higher Ed reporter who is keeping track of the Department of Ed's moves around accreditation, Doug Lederman. He's doing a great job writing this out very clearly, I think. If the tens of readers have not been keeping up with this discussion (which is a sort of under-the-radar thing, I think), check out Lederman's latest story. Higher ed can hold its breath and make all the threats it wants to (not that anyone is - more, I think, people just aren't paying attention), but something is going to happen. The key is for us - higher ed., I mean - to have a voice in what that something is.
But that work can be for another day. Because today, now that the OMB is in the mail, it will be time to devote yet more attention to some of the surprisingly reassuring minutae of WPA work, like putting the final touches on the fall term ENGL 120/121/225 schedule. Sure, it's like one of those little games with the numbers in the square where your job is to put them in numerical order... but there's something calming about that contained order-ness, especially in the midst of this kind of chaos. And then I'm going to turn to all the reading I haven't done this year - like Jeff Grabill's new book on electronic stuff and civic action, which I'm very excited about, and also a book called _Who Can Afford Critical Consciousness_ that looks interesting, and Sondra Perl's book about going to Austria (not new, but I still haven't read it). I am thinking about a restructuring of the course I always teach in fall, "Teaching Composition at the College Level," so that it reflects some very exciting thinking that a group of us have been doing around ENGL 121 (our research writing course, for you tens of readers who don't know EMU's writing curriculum like the back of your hands - which, if you don't, why don't you? Shouldn't EVERYONE? (hahahahahaha - joke there.) I also want to reread _Everyone Can Write_ again because I find it so lovely, as mentioned in a previous post. So - many things to read. The weather is FINALLY not apalling, so I might even be able to do some of this outside. How nice is *that*?
PS For you tens of readers waiting for the memo I mentioned in my last post, I decided not to post it. Enough to air my issues here; no need to stoke the fire.
What I will go into, a bit, is praise for the intrepid Inside Higher Ed reporter who is keeping track of the Department of Ed's moves around accreditation, Doug Lederman. He's doing a great job writing this out very clearly, I think. If the tens of readers have not been keeping up with this discussion (which is a sort of under-the-radar thing, I think), check out Lederman's latest story. Higher ed can hold its breath and make all the threats it wants to (not that anyone is - more, I think, people just aren't paying attention), but something is going to happen. The key is for us - higher ed., I mean - to have a voice in what that something is.
But that work can be for another day. Because today, now that the OMB is in the mail, it will be time to devote yet more attention to some of the surprisingly reassuring minutae of WPA work, like putting the final touches on the fall term ENGL 120/121/225 schedule. Sure, it's like one of those little games with the numbers in the square where your job is to put them in numerical order... but there's something calming about that contained order-ness, especially in the midst of this kind of chaos. And then I'm going to turn to all the reading I haven't done this year - like Jeff Grabill's new book on electronic stuff and civic action, which I'm very excited about, and also a book called _Who Can Afford Critical Consciousness_ that looks interesting, and Sondra Perl's book about going to Austria (not new, but I still haven't read it). I am thinking about a restructuring of the course I always teach in fall, "Teaching Composition at the College Level," so that it reflects some very exciting thinking that a group of us have been doing around ENGL 121 (our research writing course, for you tens of readers who don't know EMU's writing curriculum like the back of your hands - which, if you don't, why don't you? Shouldn't EVERYONE? (hahahahahaha - joke there.) I also want to reread _Everyone Can Write_ again because I find it so lovely, as mentioned in a previous post. So - many things to read. The weather is FINALLY not apalling, so I might even be able to do some of this outside. How nice is *that*?
PS For you tens of readers waiting for the memo I mentioned in my last post, I decided not to post it. Enough to air my issues here; no need to stoke the fire.
posted by Linda Adler-Kassner at 7:57 AM
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