Teaching Journal (2): Politics of humour

Week 4: The topic of this week was Classifying Difference, specifically race and sex/gender. I hadn't established ground rules or a learning contract with the students yet so I decided that this week would be a good time to do this, partially as a way to mitigate potentially problematic comments. I explained the usual points, such as respect (as pointed out by one of the students) and "I" statements. But I knew I wanted to really qualify the meaning of "respect."

One of the things I emphasized was that we need to pay careful attention to humour, that what we find funny is highly political. I asked the students, "What do we find funny?" After a brief moment of silence, one student answered, "A dog on a skateboard." Giggles from class. I asked, "Why is that funny?" Quiet. The same student mumbled something about a dog doesn't go on a skateboard normally. More giggles.

I took it up at this point and pointed out how a lot of humour is based on transgressing or pushing against boundaries of normality. So the image of a dog on a skateboard is funny because it blurs the boundary between human and dog. Dogs are supposed to be a certain way and not a certain way, i.e. human-like. Similarly, there are many different types of boundaries that can be crossed that could culturally register as humorous.

I decided on addressing politics of humour on a whim but I realized it's a great way to bridge discrimination at a conceptual level and at a practical level by engaging in how it manifests itself in everyday life.

Sometimes students are quite brilliant at coming up with the right examples, often without realizing it. It was a close one because I sure didn't have an example of something humorous! Dog on skateboard. I'm tucking that one away for future use.

Teaching Journal

I am teaching my second course this semester: a third-year seminar entitled "New Information Technology & Society", which I'm teaching as a science & technology studies (STS) course. My supervisor has advised me to keep a journal during teaching, as a way to reflect on my pedagogy and as a document to refer to when I put together a job application. I decided that this blog will serve as part of my journal-keeping.

Round two of teaching is infinitely easier. I think it's a combination of having some experience now and the class being mostly fourth- and fifth-years. I don't have to return to as many fundamental concepts, which makes such a topical seminar actually workable. I can say, "Hey, remember the concepts of racialization and borders? See how they play out in the context of the permanent resident card." The discussions are livelier, full of real-life examples as well as theoretical conversations.

I still have immense nausea before every class. I have trouble sleeping the night before, going over the possible class discussions in my head over and over. It also doesn't help that it's yet another new class that I'm teaching. I long for the day when I get to teach a course for the second or third time so that I can relax a bit and tweak things here and there. Assignments are also a cause for confusion as this course is turning out to be a workshop for these assignments. I'm hoping they will work but who knows for sure?

One thing I'm trying for this course is to use use more concrete examples, partly because the course material lends itself to real-life examples, partly because they facilitate learning, partly because it makes my life easier as an instructor.

Week 1: I divided the students into four groups of five and gave them a piece of technology to analyze for social, political, cultural, economic and historical contexts: washing machine, gun, phone and bicycle. I had somewhat randomly come up with those examples, but luckily they covered a lot of areas: feminism, criminalization of poverty, individualization and privacy, and urbanization and the politics of space.

Week 3: This is an activity idea I had gotten while helping my supervisor's plan for her community survey course. In the previous class, I asked the students to bring a newspaper to the next class. I had assigned Ian Hacking's "Making Up People" in the course readings for the week. After watching Chimamanda Adichie's talk, "The Danger of the Single Story", that is a brilliant discussion about the danger of stereotypes, the students worked in pairs to find an article in their newspapers that "makes up people." I provided them a set of guiding questions, such as who is being "made up"? which "expert" knowledges are invoked to give legitimacy to the claims about the people? what is the story being told? are there any missing stories? The students talked a lot about the newspaper coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. One student pointed out how the newsmedia seems to neglect the fact that there is a significant social division based on class, showing only the destroyed buildings (i.e. of the very poor) while the homes of the wealthy, which are still standing, go unnoticed. The single story being told is that Haitians are poor, have no infrastructure and chaotic. I was very impressed by their analysis.

Small pleasures: updating the CV

I needed to update my Curriculum Vitae (CV) to apply for a teaching position. I haven't looked at my CV since around this time last year. Updating your CV can be uplifting for your confidence... but it can also be depressing. My previous CV update was a bit of the latter. All I did was add one tutor marking position, which wasn't nothing but seemed like a very small accomplishment. But I had written my Comps in the previous year so all the work I had done to date was toward my degree. Sometimes, you just have to relax and put things into perspective.

This time, I added one sessional instructor position, a conference presentation and two popular press publications. Sweet! Ah, small pleasures (and big disappointments)...!

Double Isolation

10:00AM "Shoot, I slept in. Again. Well, at least it's before noon. I have at least 12 hours to do work today."

11:00AM "Oh, it's been an hour already since I woke up? I've only just had breakfast and [fill in the blank with mindless yet essential morning routine]. I still have to have some coffee. Ok, I'll start working after coffee."

12:00PM "I can't believe I've been writing this email for an hour. Great, there's goes my morning. I'll do some work now. No excuses."

1:00PM "Ugh, it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon already and I've done nothing! What's wrong with me? I can't even muster up the courage to open my word processor."

2:00PM "I finally managed to open the program but the blank page scared the crap out of me. I went running... to the kitchen. I realized that I was hungry. Saved by grumbling stomach!"

3:00PM "It's late afternoon. I've done no work. I'm still in my pajamas. Sigh..."

4:00PM "My partner's coming home in 45 minutes. I have to look like I'm doing something!"

5:00PM "I FINALLY managed to get into the zone but my partner's home now. Maybe I'll continue riding this wave of inspiration after dinner."

5:00PM-11:00PM [Fill in the blank with various evening routine: essential, but not work-related.]

11:00PM "Ahhh I've done no work today and it's time for bed! I hate staying up by myself at night to do work. It's so depressing. But I'm more depressed by the fact that I didn't leave the apartment, got no work done and wasted the entire day. The only person I spoke to today was my partner. Sigh..."

11:30PM -next morning: Fitful sleep with nightmares about angry committee members and being in class unprepared to teach.

10:00AM "Great, I slept in. Again."

This is my usual day. Or at least was until last week. I should look at this every time I feel like not working. The isolation of graduate school, especially being ABD, is two-fold. I feel isolated from my colleagues and other human beings and I feel detached from my work. The two ingredients combine in lethal ways. It leads to self-doubt, a feeling of worthlessness and various neurotic and self-destructive ways of coping. We shouldn't underestimate just how powerful this grip is on us, physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. Lynda Barry, a graphic novelist and author of the brilliant One Hundred Demons, encourages her readers to come up with a book of their own demons. Unproductivity would be one of mine. It would have many glaring eyes, a smoldering stench, make nails-on-chalkboard sounds and sit on top of my shoulder pressing me down, getting bigger and bigger as the day wanes. It likes to hang out with Worthlessness and Isolation.

Nightmare about teaching

I had yet another nightmare about teaching. I dreamt that I was teaching a seminar again and came unprepared to teach. Oh boy... NEVER want to be there again! This is the second nightmare I've had of its kind. I'd better teach another course to shake off this fear or I'll keep having these nightmares! Shake it off or at least dull the senses. Take your pick!

Work habits

I had been feeling demoralized about my productivity and work habits. (But then, when haven't I felt that way?) These days I've been thinking a lot about my work habits in general (and lack thereof) and my writing habits. I've been trying to embrace free-writing more with not as much success as I would like. In conjunction with trying diverse writing styles for different audiences, I needed to develop better writing/working habits.

At a friend's suggestion, I picked up the book How To Write A Lot by Paul Silvia from the school library. He makes candid observations about excuses people make to not write, such as "I don't have time to write", "I don't have the proper equipment", or the classic "I need inspiration to write." He refutes each of these excuses, which he calls specious obstacles, and instead claims that productivity and quality of writing will improve if and only if you develop a routine schedule for writing and stick to it no matter what. For example, he writes from 8-10AM each day and for him his writing schedule is like any other schedule or appointment. He must keep them. You wouldn't be late for your class, would you? So why would you be late for your writing schedule?, he writes.

He cites a controlled study (which looks a little flimsy to me, but no matter) which compares the number of pages written and intervals between creative ideas between people who wrote only when they're inspired and those who wrote on a rigid schedule. The difference was significant. Regardless of the validity or reliability of the study itself, I think theoretically Silvia's assertion holds a lot of truth. It's something that my friend, who has completed her dissertation and first book manuscript, had already recommended. But Silvia puts his foot down on not checking emails or any other non-writing tasks during the set schedule. You can do research, you can read articles, you can manage data, i.e. all tasks related to writing itself, but nothing else. No teaching, no administrative tasks.

The writing time can include setting up goals, which he strongly recommends. These should be practical goals, such as "write 200 words today" or "revise this draft of the chapter" but not something too large and amorphous as "finish the thesis." Silvia recommends rewarding yourself when you achieve big goals, but the reward should never be to skip a writing schedule. The point is to make writing routine, mundane and everyday. The purpose of the writing schedule is to make writing a habitual reflex, like watching a TV show when it's on, and to de-mystify the writing process.

Today is the third day that I've tried this regimen. I'm finding it difficult to start writing/working at the same time everyday but I've been doing about the same amount of work per day. I did mostly free-writing, 1300 words total in 3 days, which isn't a polished piece of work but I've written something. I also had two great ideas in those days as I wrote or in between writings. I've done some archival research and read a few journal articles. I feel really great about myself! I am shocked that I can actually discipline myself to sit and write, research or read for about 2 hours a day. Something about making writing a routine, in combination with the minimal pressure of free-writing, is making this work for me. I am amazed. Of course, this is only Day 3 and I haven't tried any non-free-writing yet... but I am so happy that I'm working everyday. I have been infinitely happier in the past five days knowing that I did something productive everyday, even though I may end up discarding what I wrote during the days. Weekend felt sweeter, too.

At Paul Silvia's suggestion, I made a spreadsheet to track my writing progress. I have a few simple columns: Date, Reading, Writing Type, # of Words, Outline/Brainstorm/Ideas, Research and Time. I fill in whatever applies that day. For example, today I wrote on my blog (which I count as reflections on my work process), finished archiving the 1914 issues of CMAJ and contacted the Liaison Librarian for help with archival search. I will finish reading two articles before the day ends and I will have worked from 11:30-3:00, with a lunch break in between. Today wasn't a big writing day but I'm not worried too much because everything I did today will lead to writing on another day. Right now I'm trying not to focus too much on how much I do, but rather that I do something. I'm more focused on developing a habit before gradually increasing the quantity and quality of work I produce. This way, I think I will avoid becoming discouraged from this new routine early in the process.

The spreadsheet is also fulfilling another function. Because it summarizes various types of tasks that I do, it helps me indirectly organize my materials, sources and thoughts in one place. This is particularly useful right now because my ideas are still jumbled and are not yet organized. What a happy happenstance!

Writing strategies

I've been part of a writing group since earlier this year. We have met about three or four times so far, discussed our writing priorities and read at least one piece of writing from each person. This week, we watched a video together about writing: Peter Elbow On Writing (Media Education Foundation, 1995). Peter Elbow, a professor of English and a teacher of writing, discusses some of his philosophies and strategies about writing, different audiences and responses to writing. He emphasizes "making a mess", which in fact goes against the age-old writing rule that you need to make an outline and have a clear idea of what you're writing before you write. He suggests free-writing without revising, without spell-checking, without fixing grammar. And you can even be repetitive, point that intrigued our group: We're allowed?

One of the problems in writing that Peter Elbow points out is the fact that we almost always write for a teacher, i.e. an authority figure, be it a professor, advisor or journal/book reviewer. There are other kinds of audiences, too: peers and allies. Ally readers are those who read your writing and still like you and respect you even if it sucks. This is an important point about the emotional risks involved in writing and sharing your writing. We need supportive individuals as well as critiques of our writing.

There are also different types of audience responses:

1) Private writing: There is no audience. It's the safest type of writing because it's where you can really make a mess and take risks you normally wouldn't take with an audience at the end of the process.

2) No response: Someone reads your writing but does not give you any response to it. It can be awkward but a simple "thank you" can help alleviate the awkwardness. This is slightly more risky but still very safe. Both private writing and no-response writing help you to write more and take more risks because you don't have to worry about the audience very much.

3) Response but no evaluation: This can be particularly difficult for us in academia who have been trained to critique, critique, critique. The reader's responses should answer: What do you think my piece was about? How did it make you feel? Did it inspire you to think of other ideas? Nothing else. No sentences that start with "You should..." or "You didn't..." This type of response is so important yet underrated. Before you can make any critique, you have to first understand what the writer is trying to say. There's no use tearing someone's work apart if there isn't a mutual understanding as to what the piece is about. It's time wasted and relationships damaged for no reason. This type of feedback also compels the writer to write better and more clearly, and yet still feel safe enough to take certain risks. (This is my favourite type of response! It builds understanding, help bridge between differences and truly agree to disagree.)

4) Critical evaluation: This is only one type of response. We dwell on this so much in academia but it really should come at the very end.

My writing group will try out these four stages of writing and audience response. We will first meet to do some free-writing then discuss the process, not the contents. It's not something that any of us are familiar with so it'd be interesting to examine how we gradually become accustomed to it. We will then meet to read outloud to one another with no response, a great suggestion by one of our members. Having a piece read outloud by the author is a great way to physically feel the person's "voice" and hear how the piece was intended to be read by the author. We will then move on to response without evaluation and finally to critical evaluation. We not only think this will improve the quality of our writing but also help us develop a trusting writing/reading relationship in our little group. Trust is also one of those things that are so important yet underrated in scholarship. Hopefully, we can become both peer and ally readers to one another.