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The topic for the day is argument. I was up late trying to figure out a fresh way to approach this topic with my students (suffering from a little teacher’s block). I wanted to balance my desire for a more democratic classroom (one that resists heavy-handed lecture) and the practical need to get them quickly [...]

Re-vision. Re-seeing. Looking and then looking again. Shifting points-of-view. Repositioning vantage points. Is what we see truth or mere convention? In my composition class, I’ve been introducing students gradually to a deeper understanding of revision as a concept of rethinking, as opposed to simple editing. We’ve been using Adrianne Rich’s essay “When We Dead Awaken: [...]

As we continue our conversation about the aims of education in my composition course this semester, we’ve been talking about this idea of not learning–not the inability to learn or the lack of opportunity, but the willful refusal to learn, to the point where it actually takes a good deal of work. My hope is [...]