English 100 at Ashland

During this last month Look carefully at your class schedule. Mistakes happen, and you will find it much easier to correct them in the week or two before classes start. Do a campus walk-through. We are a small campus, but we are still big enough to be confusing. Some buildings are known by more than one name. (A great example is the building our class is in: commonly called Bixler, it’s on the campus map as “Center for Humanities 14 ,” and it shows up in your computer list as “Center for Humanities Bixler.”) Your Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule is different from your Tuesday-Thursday schedule. Walk both of them and actually find the rooms. Get an eye exam. Don’t laugh. At least one student in every section I teach sits in the back, squinting and struggling to see the board. If you need glasses, get them. Wear them. They don’t look weird. Go shopping. I assum...

Whether we’re talking about college, work, or being on an athletic team, anyone can do these, and they often make the difference between success and failure. Raw talent is never enough; in fact, most teachers can name several smart, talented students who failed because they just couldn’t follow through on these traits. I got this list from this website ; the discussion there is more complete and worth looking at. Being on time Work ethic Effort Body language Energy Attitude Passion Being coachable Doing extra Being prepared I would go so far as to say that these ten will later make the difference between people who get hired and people who don’t. Ten more Here are another ten from the same author . Within this list, there are a few that have a special impact on college students. The student who sees the academic task as mainly being a matter of memorizing facts to regurgitate on tests will probably be ve...

Looking forward to the fall semester, some of my students are wound very tightly, terrified about what’s coming. (Will I fail instantly? Will everyone hate me? How will I ever find my way around campus? Maybe I should just give up now!) Others are extremely laid-back and probably won’t even begin to think about college until August 24. Message to the uptight Relax! If you made it through high school, you can probably make it through college. Thousands of students on thousands of campuses have done what you are about to do—and my whole agenda as a teacher is to help you pass. Ashland University has a lot of resources to help you get through this place, and you don’t have to pay extra for them. If you are still full of anxiety, make a list of things you need to do (Get computer ready; buy a book bag.) and as you accomplish them over the next month, check them off. Then you can look at your list and say, “There! Nailed that one! I’m closer to my goa...

Summer is about two-thirds done, and it’s time (for me, at least) to begin thinking about the fall semester. As I write this, I’ve got the skeleton of the Blackboard Learning Management software set up, but I haven’t really settled everything about the course. Every semester is different: some previous readings don’t work any more because the current events or politics have changed (and, to tell the truth, sometimes I assign readings that just didn’t work too well). So every time I teach, I rethink things. I rode the Great Allegheny Passage bike trip, which I mentioned before, from July 10 to 13. We went from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, about 140 miles. It was gloriously wonderful, and I’ll probably keep talking about it for the next six months. This trip was a direct result of reading some advice about spending money to make yourself happy: spend it on experiences not possessions. Good advice. Summer isn’t really done yet, so in the few remaining weeks,...

Everyone writes everything on a computer now, right? Wrong. In high school, perhaps you got along without having any handwriting skills (and, sadly, nobody teaches people how to handle a pen any more), but in college, you should expect to do a lot of handwriting. Classroom notes. You came to college to learn from teachers, and some of the things they say show up on tests. Computers are awkward for taking class notes, and phones are totally useless. Several studies show that people who hand-write class notes learn more about the content than people who take notes on computers. Notes on reading. You should be marking your textbooks and keeping a reading journal of your assignments. This just won’t work with a computer. In-class tests and quizzes. There is often no way to print out a typed copy of a quiz, so you will be writing it. If your writing is slow and difficult, you are at a disadvantage. If your writing ...

I see from the news that the newest Covid variant (BA.5) is spreading and likely to cause trouble. It’s supposed to be easier to catch and less affected by immunization. (And we all thought that the pandemic was behind us!) What you should do The rules are much the same as they have been for a couple of years now: Keep practicing social distancing. (Personal note: I was stuck in an airplane in the Orlando airport for two hours while the airline tried to find us a pilot. Sure enough, a week later I had all the symptoms of a mild Covid infection—exhaustion, cough, and muscle aches.) Keep washing your hands. The structure of the virus requires a grease molecule to bind it to your cells, so common soap and water is a surprisingly good defense. We should probably go back to masks, especially in places such as church or classrooms where a lot of people are packed together. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the university co...

There is now a way to comment on each of the blog items. Just click on Enter Comment when you are reading the main body of the post or post a comment when you are on the index page. You don’t have to identify yourself, but in any case your comment won’t appear until I have read and approved it. The reason for the delay is simply that I didn’t click the right setting when I first set up the blog. Sorry about that.

Business people talk about “hard skills” and “soft skills.” Hard skills can be taught with books of instructions—things such as driving a standard shift, using Microsoft Word, or analyzing a blood sample. Soft skills are such things as showing up on time for work, giving the boss the proper respect, wearing appropriate clothing for the task, and keeping your work area tidy. Many college students figure that the hard skills are all they need, but the hard skills are relatively easy to teach; if you lack soft skills, you will struggle in college and have a lot of trouble finding and keeping a job. Somewhere in the middle area between these are the adulting skills. People who lack these skills might be able to pass courses, but their time in college will be very difficult. Here are a few you will need—and now is a good time to begin working on them. Doing laundry. Surprised that I put it first? The ...

I am not asking a deep philosophical question (Why did you get created? What’s the purpose of life?) I’m being much more simple-minded. Why did you decide to go to college? Why did you decide to come to Ashland? What are you looking for? First, a couple of non-answers I sometimes have students who are here so they can play football and get into the NFL. If that’s you, you need a backup career plan. Yes, Ashland does send people to the NFL—about one every ten years. We sent one guy to the NBA too—back in the 1970s. You seriously need a career plan besides professional sports. Every college, Ashland included, has a few students who are here to party. I don’t need to tell you that’s a waste of time and money, and party animals won’t be here very long. Grow up. If you’re not here to learn something college-related, you need to shift gears fast. Some good answers I’m not passing judgment; all are valid and it’s completely reasonable to find yours...

I was going to put together a list of the differences between high school and college, but then I ran into a website which summarized things beautifully: How is College Different from High School? This website comes from California State University, Chico, a campus which is much larger than ours. As I look over their list, though, the only change I would make is the comment on class size: Here at Ashland, your class size is likely to be smaller than what you experienced in high school! The maximum class size for our course is only 15 students, which means that you really can ask a question and hope for an answer! (Though, of course, class sizes in other departments will be different from ours.) Two differences worth emphasizing Doing the reading In high school, you usually got the reading assignment, then were expected to go home and read it. Many students didn’t actually do that because the teacher would typically spend the next day telli...

I have to start by saying that Ashland is not much like a huge university such as OSU (Apologies to outsiders who are reading this blog). When I was a freshman, my chemistry, history, and biology lectures all had 200+ students, and we had discussion/lab sections that were supervised by graduate students. That’s pretty typical for a large university, but at Ashland, your history class is more likely to have 20 students. This means you have some hope of getting an answer to a question if the lecture has lost you. I also have to say that those stupid movies such as Animal House or Van Wilder are just plain wrong. They have almost nothing in common with real college life. They are about as accurate as a Groucho Marx movie. So what are college teachers like? One similarity between high school teachers and college instructors: Almost nobody goes into teaching for the money; we genuinely like our students and the content of the courses—that’s ...

Face it: We’re not in Berkeley, California, or in Cleveland or Columbus. We’re not even in Mansfield. One student asked me where people go clubbing. My answer was “Umm … Burger King?” One of my Chinese students was astonished to see Amish buggies on Claremont Avenue. He thought someone was making a movie. The trick here is to let Ashland be Ashland. Doing stuff The trick, as I said, is to let Ashland be Ashland and to expect to do some walking. Another trick is to grab a friend and get a spirit of exploration. Ashland is a very safe place to walk, and there are a lot of shady old neighborhoods near campus. Just take a walk and look at houses from a bygone era. Fire up Google Maps and find Brookside Park and Brookside Golf Course. If you’re a golfer, this course is within walking distance. The Ashland County Fair will take place September 18-24. It’s about two miles away (ju...

No blog today. I’m taking Independence Day off, hoping to find a decent fireworks display. Years ago, I was doing type and layout for a small-circulation magazine based in Canada. I was on the phone with the editor in late June and asked, “Do you have a Fourth of July in Canada?” “Why, no we don’t,” he said. I asked the obvious question: “So how do you keep the third from crashing into the fifth?”

It has been a long time since I had the self-discipline to simply stop for the summer. There were always summer courses to teach, curricula to rewrite, etc. I promised myself, however, that this summer would be different. Yes, I’m spending a lot of effort on this blog, and I’ll put in big time preparing for fall classes, but this will be a more relaxed summer than most, time to do some other things: I started the summer running sound effects for Mid-Ohio Opera. When the phone rang on stage, I was pushing the button. When lightning flashed and thunder rolled, I was pushing the button. I spent a week at Disney in Florida with grandkids, my first trip there. I get the idea that I’m one of the last people in Ohio to get there for the first time (probably not true). The highlight of July will be a bike trip on the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, about 45 miles of riding a day. Fun stuff! ...