Linden's Pensieve

In a critical response essay to the preface and introduction to Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, one of my students wrote the following in her introduction: They say that using a template formate can help to form powerful written opinions. They say I can start [...]

Monday was good. Monday morning, Rob had to go into work at 6 for a meeting, but he came home at 8 and had to go back in for a 1 to close shift. He had run by Wal-Mart and bought some bacon, sausage, and croissants… and pinkish-purple irises in a pink basket–very cute. I [...]

Unfortunately, I just got addicted to StumbleUpon. Here are a few of the things I’ve *ahem* stumbled upon lately: OMG! This is blowing my mind! Double Wires: Looks so simple… If I was into forwarding bunches of useless (although sometimes funny) lists of things, I’d probably have forwarded The 86 Rules of Boozing. Web Design: [...]

I am having my students do an independent study over a book called They Say/I Say (TSIS), which presents templates as a way for student writers to begin conceiving of writing as a conversation they are entering and gives them the “moves that matter in academic writing” that they may or may not be aware [...]

Each MA student must write 20 questions, 10 for each area selected. My two areas are TESOL and linguistics. Luckily, the TESOL MA students have a list already written for us, and we just have to select 10 TESOL questions and 10 linguistics questions. Those lists are due to the graduate director by the end [...]

American Idol:Rosie shut up. Are you effin’ kidding me? This is not the first season. The people who are getting made fun of knew exactly what they were getting into when they tried out. I feel a little sorry for them, because it is always hard to think that you are doing a good job [...]

I am a part of a study group of the comprehensive exams in TESOL and linguistics, and I am so glad. If I were talking to you in person, I would probably have leaned in, raised my eyebrows, and said those words with conviction and slightly slower than normal. So that you would understand their [...]

It started Monday morning at 5:30 when I rolled out of bed to finish up class prep and see Rob off to work. Ugh. It was an early morning. My first section of English 210 went really well. I even made them laugh a few times, and that’s an accomplishment for me. I’m being strict [...]

The following is part of an email from Dr. Biava, a professor who has taught almost every single one of my graduate-level TESOL courses: [BTW, I will need a substitute to teach ENG 590 (grammar; you took this last spring) for 3 classes near the end of March. I think we will be meeting T/Th [...]

Now, I feel really mean saying the following things, so just know that. It doesn’t feel like me at all, either. Lindsay and Morgan both said the way to fix this is to apologize and then continue to act in a manner that proves I meant it. But the problem is that I don’t want [...]