How English Teachers Channel Frustration. . .

Last week, I was grading sophomore research papers, and my experience prompted me to include in my Facebook statuses throughout the day fourteen different paper writing tips. For your amusement/education/whatever the case may be, I'm putting them all together here. . . if you've ever written a paper, you may see yourself in at least one of these. AND if you've ever graded research papers, you may see past and present students in all of them! :-)

Tip #1: Although "we" and "you" are indeed no-nos in formal writing, using the word "people" in their place 22 times in a 2 page paper is NOT an acceptable alternative.

Tip #2: Although it is also true that plagiarism is a bad, bad thing, putting 75% of your paper in quotation marks isn't an acceptable solution to THAT difficulty, either. Remember: it's called "writing a paper," not "stringing quotes together"...break up those puppies and/or paraphrase them! (Just ask Nicole Beard. :-D)

Tip #3: Spell check is your friend...but only to a point. If you type "by close" when you mean "buy clothes," it's not going to know that you've royally messed up twice. It's called "proofreading," people.

Tip #4: When a teacher is willing to look over countless revisions of your paper, take advantage of her (or his) generosity. That way, the opinion-based, emotion focus first draft can turn into the research paper it's supposed to be before said teacher grades your final draft! :-) This student gave me possibly a dozen revisions to check,and her end result was so much better as a result.

Tip #5: Don't overuse words. "Amazing" probably isn't the best choice for a formal paper as it is, but it's much less amazing when you use it four times in the first six lines of your paper.

Tip #6: If the topic is a global issue, then I expect you to write about how it affects people all across the globe. That's what "global" means, gang.

Tip #7: It's a truly excellent idea to pay attention during your teacher's presentation on MLA format, especially when it's the first thing she does after eight weeks of maternity leave. However, if you find this an impossible task, then at least pay attention to the sample paper that she gives you so that if you can't make your paper look just like it, you can see the problems and ask for help in fixing them. That way, you won't end up with a single-spaced, unalphabetized works cited page and a header that's out of place because you failed to use Word's Header/Footer function.

Tip #8: It isn't a cited work unless you've actually cited it within the body of your paper. The fact that you have listed it on your works cited page is irrelevant if you haven't cited the source, and I'm still counting off if you haven't cited the minimum number of sources in the *paper*.

Tip #9: If you're going to plagiarize, please don't insult my intelligence by doing an obvious copy and paste job (give or take the contractions that you corrected). If your paper mentions the names and populations of two relatively small Iowa towns without saying they're in Iowa (as in, it's written as though I should know without your naming the state...and I don't), that's going to inspire me to Google that sentence. And when I find the article from which it came and find your whole paper in that article...cross-apply what I said about plagiarism being a bad, bad thing.

Tip #10: If you didn't bring it up in the body of the paper, don't mention it in the conclusion. SN: This is one of many reasons that I think instruction in policy debate would be good for all our students. If you master the concept of "nothing new in rebuttals," you've got the "nothing new in the conclusion" idea down already. :-)

Tip #11: EasyBib is awesome but not perfect. Let your teacher look over that works cited page just to be on the safe side.

Tip #12: You really don't have to state the obvious, and it's a good idea to read over what you've written to make sure that you haven't done so. For example, you don't need to tell me that people are the reason that the world is in its current situation...I haven't been blaming the giraffes all this time, I promise. (Or "The Bible is one of the most influential books in all of literature." That was yours truly circa 1985...had "Duh!" been in fashion 27 years ago, I'm sure that's what Dr. Lloyd would have written on my paper.)

Tip #13: Don't use eight words when one will do. If you can make the point by saying "without," don't make me suffer through "in a way of not having to tolerate." (Yes, that's true even when your paper is running short of the required length. I mentally deduct the padding and take it off your content, anyway, because you really don't have as much content as you appear to.)

Tip #14: Be very careful regarding the credibility of your sources. For example, if you're trying to prove to me that the countries of the world should set aside all differences for the good of mankind, Dmitry Medvedev may not be your best weapon for convincing me to hold hands and sing "Kum Bah Yah" (and I probably just totally butchered the spelling of that title). If you don't know who he is or anything about him, kids, look him up and do some reading. SN: Another good argument for policy debate instruction is geopolitical awareness. :-)

A New Year's Resolution Begun Early

During the past week or so that I've been out on Christmas break, I've started a list of New Year's resolutions in my head. . . and one of those resolutions is to blog more regularly. Obviously, the fact that I last updated this one over three years ago indicates that keeping this resolution will be pretty easy, but my goal is to update it at least three times a week. I need an outlet for all of the "stuff" running around in my mind, and I probably should pour it somewhere besides my ridiculously long Facebook statuses, right?

Man, has my life changed since I last updated this in October, 2008. . . aka two kids ago. If you had told me on that October day that by the time I next updated, I would have two children (and that this would mean not that I'd found them in a paper sack or something but had actually been pregnant twice and had two babies), I would have thought you had completely lost it. It wouldn't have surprised me that it would have taken me long enough TO have had two babies before I'd update the blog again, but my 43 year-old self had no doubt that my baby ship had sailed. But have them I did, and my view of my world and myself are completely different now than they were three years ago. Needless to say, I'll probably write A LOT about Price and Mariah and the joy that they've brought into my life - and the perpetual pulling apart that I feel as I try to juggle teacher work and coach work and motherhood and wifehood (no, I'm not listing these in order of importance) and do each job with a modicum of success - but all that "stuff" in my mind covers lots of different topics. I will do my best not to scare anyone who actually reads this by being too off the wall, but I make no promises.

OK, I'm going to keep this short (for me, this is short) and wrap up a partial day spent at LCHS and go home to get ready to go with two of my friends from high school to the visitation for another classmate's father. People can say all kinds of negative things about social networking. . . however, if it weren't for Facebook, I don't know how many of us would know that Mr. Rhodes had passed away, and it's even less likely that LeGaye, Laura, and I could have connected so quickly to go together. There's much to be said for something that connects (or reconnects) friends of over 30 years standing, I think.

Until later. . . and hopefully "later" won't be some time in 2015! :-)

I Heart October

As I sit and type (prodded just a bit to update my blog by having read Hilary's comment on my last entry. . . hopefully I'll get some props for the fact that I'm improving on my previous track record even though I'm still not posting once a week just yet), it is 54 degrees outside. Let me pause for just a minute to take that in. Autumn weather is finally here! Granted, I'd rather be enjoying it much farther north (oh, say, in Maine) surrounded by red, gold, and orange leaves, but I'll take what I can get. It was even cool enough during third block today that the AP seniors and I could go out on the front porch to have class - at least the first hour of it. (By lunch time, we all decided that it had gotten just a bit too warm - my slightly reddened arms and face backed up this observation - and elected to finish up the block inside after they returned from lunch.)

October is probably my favorite month of the year. . . or at least it is when it feels like October. I love most aspects of living in Georgia, but one of the biggest drawbacks is that we tend to go straight from summer to winter during so many years. I'm prety excited about this crispness in the air and the actual need for this blanket that I have draped across me right now as I watch playoff baseball and remind myself that I really do need to finish grading the senior 1984 tests. Admittedly, I wish that the baseball that I'm watching included the Braves, but I can't have everything. . . and I'm well aware that my having had the opportunity to watch them in October for fourteen years in a row means that I was better off than fans of most professional baseball teams.

The beginning of October also means that we're well into the debate season now. At this point, we've competed more in IEs than we have debate, but we've been pretty busy in both (especially lately). So far? Two tournaments, fifteen awards. . . not such a bad start, I don't think. We're home this weekend (yea!), but the next four weekends will be busy (a wedding that Claude is catering, two tournaments, and our IE/PF/LD tournament at LCHS).

However, I do solemnly promise to try to post at least once a week. :-)

Note: Claude took the pictures of the little ones at Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia last October.

Lunchtime Musings

Yes, Lenalee "Never Posts on Her Blog" Robinson is posting on her blog. . . amazing, I know. I've decided that I'm going to start trying to post something every day during lunch. . . it's one of the few quiet (give or take whatever George Winston-esque music I'm playing on Last.fm at the time) times of my day, and the senior AP students can probably give me food for thought if I need it. Whether or not you'd always want to read that particular line of thought is anyone's guess - within five seconds today, we managed to jump from Thomas Hardy to RuPaul - but at least I'll have something to say.

Speaking of Last.fm, I highly recommend it if you've never visited the site. Not only does it give you a chance to listen to whatever they have loaded that your iPod or other listening device may not, but it also gives you the chance to explore the music of artists that may be new to you. Lunch and planning these days basically start with my going to the site and asking it to play music like George Winston's (hence the "George Winston-esque" comment above) because his is pretty much perfect relax and/or grade papers music for me. However, it's also nice to have some variety in my new age jazz list. . .thus, I just let it throw tracks at me, skip the ones that I don't like, and fall in love with the ones that I do. (Of course, then I'm lulled into this falsely peaceful midday serenity. . . when the bell rings, as it did just now, to let me know that my seniors are about to return from lunch.) The biggest down side is that it makes me wish that I were curled up with a Starbucks latte of some description writing or reading or something that didn't involve paper grading.

Alas, my eleven realities (one is absent today) are back and peer reviewing, so I'll sign off for now. Let's see if (a) I can get myself in gear to do this again tomorrow and (b) if the world as we know it will end if I actually post something two days in a row!

So Much for Promptness. . .

OK, so I had great intentions about posting regularly when I started this. . . then again, we all know which road is paved with good intentions. I wanted to put some time between the first two posts, but I didn't really intend for it to be almost four months.

It's now spring break, and it's fantastic to unwind from a really, really busy and somewhat draining past few months. January wasn't so bad - even the LC tourney wasn't too stressful this year - but February was brutal. Because the Milton tournament ended up being postponed until the first weekend in February due to snow, we ended up with four tournaments in a row. . . which for me meant working four six-day weeks in a row (and losing more than half of our winter break due to NFL districts). To make matters worse, I had two really bad bugs (or one really bad bug and a nasty relapse) in February and was pretty close to the sickest that I've ever been. (And because I hate dealing with making plans for subs, I took a whopping one-half day of sick leave in the midst of that. . . of course, I also missed the first night of districts because I was too sick to leave the hotel.) March brought spring lit, GHSGT, and the end of the nine weeks. . . let's just say that it has been pretty stressful since Christmas break.

Anyhow, back to where I was back in December and the whole "re-evaluate my priorities" thing. . . I already discussed my wreck and how aware I was that I could have been killed as a result of it. If I needed any reinforcements regarding my understanding of the fragility of my mortality, I got them the next week. On the Sunday afternoon after my wreck, I received a phone call from Jeanie Smith (who besides being the LCHS media specialist grew up in the same church that I did, albeit a few years ahead of me, so we basically go back a few decades) telling me that Dana O'Neill had had an aneurysm burst and was in critical condition.

Dana was our school registrar/guidance secretary, but that doesn't adequately describe what she meant to so many people, including me. She was an incredibly devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. . . a dedicated and involved member of her church (Kiokee Baptist, where Claude and I are also members). . . a concerned and always willing to listen friend. All of that love and devotion came from her passion for Christ and her desire to be a woman after God's own heart; she saw her role at LCHS as her mission field, and she witnessed to more students than any of us will ever be able to count. Much of her time each summer was devoted to her work at Camp Hope, and she participated in many mission trips, most recently at the orphanage that her sister operates in Honduras. While I have no doubt that she, like Paul, believed that "to live is Christ, and to die is gain," I also don't doubt that, as she was teaching Sunday school with her husband that morning, it never occurred to her that for all intents and purposes, her life on earth with the people and places that she loved so dearly would be over within a few hours. (She was in the emergency room when the aneurysm burst; she went into a coma after surgery and was declared brain dead that Wednesday. . . she passed away on Thursday.)

It really struck me (not that I didn't know it already, but. . . ) that we really don't have any idea when it's going to be our time. I think that in our heart of hearts, most of us believe that all of those things that take people before "their time" (whatever that is) happen to other people. Other people die in car accidents. Other people have aneurysms just lying in wait to burst and kill us. Other people have terminal cancer. Other people are the victims of random crime (as in. . . other schools are attacked by deranged students). Yet one of my mother's first cousins died in a car accident. . . my own grandfather died of a ruptured aneurysm. . . my aunt died of a brain tumor. . . one of my father's first cousins and his wife were stabbed to death in their own home. . . a student was killed about fifteen years ago in a school shooting about fifteen minutes from my house. You'd think that I know better. . . and that given my own number of near misses (for example, in 98% of all accidents involving tractor trailer trucks and cars, either the car's driver or a passenger or both are killed. . . I hit one with a Honda Civic and was hardly even sore the next day), I wouldn't need any more reminders that I need to follow Thoreau's advice to simplify and keep my accounts on my thumbnail.

Knowing all of that hasn't slowed me down just yet - too many chores for this school year were set in motion before December - but next school year will be a different story, I've decided. I don't want to look back on my life and (borrowing from Thoreau again) discover that, for a good portion of it at least, I have not lived. . . or (borrowing from John Lennon) that my life has happened while I've been busy making other plans.

On a more pleasant and far less philosophical note. . . we have puppies! No, they weren't planned. . . and yes, they were fathered by a brother and sister. (Before you start humming the theme from Deliverance - and yes, I've heard that already - you should know that there are reputable breeders who breed only in-line. . . and the puppies are also AKC registered. So there. :-)) For your viewing pleasure, here's Super Pooka (a valiant superhero disguised as a mild-mannered six week-old basset hound puppy) with her penguin cape.

Jumping into the Water. . . and the Battle of Wounded Knee

Several months ago, I developed a new addiction: Facebook. I'm constantly checking for messages, adding applications (I'm seriously hooked on PuzzleBee), reading my Facebook friends' profiles. . . and reading the blogs that they reference in those profiles. As I've read, I've kept thinking, "You know, sooner or later, I need to start a blog of my own."

So. . . here it is: a blog of my own.

Although the recent blogs definitely helped to inspire me to do this, some things that have happened over the past two weeks have had a great deal to do with it, too. Writing and reflecting go hand in hand - at least, they always have with me - and I've certainly found myself doing quite a bit of reflecting lately. It strikes me that as long as I'm doing all of this life- and self-examination, I might as well have an outlet for it. If those thoughts don't interest anyone else. . . oh, well - guess that means that my blog will in effect turn into my online diary. If they do? Well, I like to think that a large part of the way that I make my living involves encouraging others to think. . . I might as well do it in my free time, too.

So what has led to all of this thinking that I've been doing? I'll confine this post to what happened to me about two weeks ago: a car accident. I was on my way to work on December 3 (just another manic Monday), and I was (as was my not-so-smart habit) putting on my makeup while I was driving. Lest you think that I'm a complete idiot, I'm really not. . . that comment conjures images of my driving down the road with my eyes plastered to the rearview mirror for minutes at a time without looking out for other cars, deer (always a threat on my path to work), fallen tree branches, or anything else that I might hit. I never took my eyes off the road for a more than a second or two, and I never did it when there was another car in front of me that might slow down or brake suddenly in front of me. In short, I thought that I was being seriously careful and knew exactly what I was doing.

I'd laugh at a habitually drunk driver for that logic. I wonder why I didn't see the flaws in my own.

So. . . I was going around a curve, and I made sure that I was into the curve before glancing up to put on eyeliner (I think under the lower lashes on my right eye. . . it would occur to me later on that I went around for the rest of the day with eyeliner on only one eye). I felt my tires go a few inches off the road, and I cut back onto the highway. Unfortunately, it had rained enough over the weekend to make the grass on the side of the road and the road itself just slick enough for my brakes to lock, and I completely lost control of the car. I skidded over 130 feet across the highway onto the grass on the other side and found myself heading straight toward some trees and a fence.

All that I could think as I tried unsuccessfully to regain control of my car (and skidded another 150+ feet in the grass) was, "People have died doing what I'm doing right now." By extension, of course, it occurred to me that I could die, too, but I sort of compartmentalized that part of the equation as I tried in vain to miss the trees. The impact smashed in the front of my dear old 1995 Honda Accord - which I had bought when it was a baby with 41 miles on it and which at that point had over 348,000 - and ripped off my front bumper as it knocked me into a 180 degree turn. Amazingly enough, as old as they were, the airbags deployed (the scariest part of the whole thing was seeing the powder when they did. . . I thought at first that it was smoke), and the seat belt held me perfectly still. In short, I killed my car, but I walked away with a slightly banged-up left knee (it's still a little bit sore) and a few bruises (apparently from the airbag) that would show up two days later on my left arm. I wasn't even sore on Tuesday.

Had a vehicle been traveling in the southbound lane, I could easily have been killed. Had my car flipped (always a possibility when you're hurtling over an embankment, however slight, at. . . uh. . . over 55 miles per hour), I could have been killed. If my windshield or windows had shattered, I cut have been seriously cut up. (The windshield spidered but did not shatter; the windows were intact.) It's not lost on me how blessed I am to have walked away with a wounded knee. . . and if I had died, it would have been my own stupid fault.

Not surprisingly, I spent a lot of time during the rest of that week thinking about just how quickly life can change. . . and how quickly it can end, actually. I also thought about a few close calls that I've had and reminded myself that there was a reason that it wasn't my time to go when they happened.

Claude and I were talking about this subject a few days ago, and he asked whether I thought that everyone really does have a designated time to die. The second part of my answer was, ". . . and I believe that a person can through her own stupidity skid across a highway during morning drive time and end up with only a bruise on her knee."

And the first part? I'll save that for my next post. . . and the story of why what happened the following week reinforced my awareness of how quickly life can change. . . and how quickly it can end.