Academia: April 2005 Archive Page

Professors see the world in terms of experts and students: "We are smart; you are dumb." That's the Infantile American Principle in a nutshell. Now go play with your toys and don't bother me. --David Gelernter --The 'We're Smart, You're Dumb' Principle (LA Times (will expire))

The article is really a critique of Democratic philosophy, but I thought I'd post this quote about professors as a reminder that I should stay humble.

I don't agree that professors should behave this way, but because our job regularly places us in the front of a room of bright people who nod and write down things that we say, it's important to remember the artificiality of the situation. I mean, if civilization collapses, and we're all scrambling for food, who's going to care that there's a typographical error on the last non-radioactive can of soup? I sure won't. So let's keep things in perspective.

Gelernter himself is a professor, so he's not just lobbing missiles randomly.

Telling ourselves we have "so much" to do and that it is "so hard" and that we'll "never get done" is conterproductive. Instead of talking about these things we should just haul off and do them!

And don't let friends that don't get this concept to drag you down with them. Let them list their tribulations, if they must, but tell them you're sure they'll get it done and that they'll be fine. Because they will. And so will you; but you are much better off not trying to play "anything-you-have-I-have-it-worse" game. That isn't getting anyone anywhere. --Karissa Kilgore --We're all working hard... comparatively.... (New Media Journalism @ Seton Hill University)

I've had Karissa as a student in several classes. Like everyone else at school this week, she's facing a mountain of work.

Her positive attitude is refreshing and welcome.

In the minority are those teachers who have setup their blog/cms as the main home page for their site, integrated into their blog or CMS or at least provide obvious links to their CV, teaching experience, etc, off of the main page of their blog. The blog/CMS is thus positioned as the main public face for establishing professional ethos, an inseparable part of the teacher/researcher's identity. I was actually surprised at how few I have been able to find; it seems a large number of those in the field don't provide direct links to their professional CV or teaching philosophy from the front page of their blog or only a brief mention of their professional affiliation thus making it obvious to me that they would not share their blog as the singular main portal into their professional identity in a cover letter or resume submitted to a hiring committee.

Here's the list I have so far where teachers are building their professional identity into their blog/cms site, or at least featuring the blog as their home page with direct links back to CV, bio, etc.

• Matt Barton
• Johndan Johnson-Eilola
• Dennis Jerz
• Charles Lowe
• Clancy Ratliff
• Rich Rice
• Clay Spinuzzi

Anyone have suggestions for other sites in rhetoric and composition with these characteristics? I'm sure there must be some more out there and I'd like a few more examples. --Teachers Who Position Their Blog or CMS as their Professional Home Page (KairosNews)

Professors, in general, have the luxury of appearing moderate and open to competing ideas, but insecure students often research the opinions of faculty members to ensure that they will be on the correct side of any apparently open dialogue. The powerless seize on small expressions of political opinion from the powerful and embrace these views even more radically in order to prove their loyalty and worthiness.

Of course, most of us probably didn't recognize that we were latecomers to the grad-school pyramid scheme. Theory with a capital T grew up with the expansion of graduate programs and the adjunctification of higher education during the last 30 years. It was a ticket to success for a charmed circle of insiders: a few people at elite institutions with the connections and advance knowledge to get in and out of the game before the general rush. The language of theory -- carefully deployed in the world of academic hiring and publication -- still functions in ways that suggest the sub rosa communications of Ivy League clubmen in the world of investment banking.

By the turn of the millennium, however, the jargon-laden writing was on the wall. Shoeshine boys were talking about Jacques Derrida. You could buy books on Theory at Wal-Mart with a six-pack of Zima and an "Indigo Girls" T-shirt.

And now it seems like everyone is rushing to get out with what's left of their devalued stock. Famous scholars such as Henry Louis Gates, Homi Bhabha, and Terry Eagleton have announced that "theory is dead." Of course, at this late date, it's as if our leaders have emerged from months of concentrated thought to announce that Jefferson Starship is no longer on the cutting edge of popular music. --"Thomas H. Benton" --Life After the Death of Theory (Chronicle)

I had the very same alienating experience with one particular theory class at the University of Virginia, though I also remember some very productive courses with E.D. "Cultural Literacy" Hirsch and Arthur "Shakespeare" Kirsch, among others.

In Hirsch's class, a history of critical theory, there were two philosophy students who frequently arrived about 10 minutes late, walked all the way across the lecture hall to their seat right next to the instructor's desk, and dominated the post-lecture Q & A sessions by arguing philosophical points with Hirsch. Once I actually went up to Hirsch after class and asked that he not let those students dominate the discussion, though in retrospect I'm sure that if I had simply raised my hand to ask a good question, he'd have gladly called on me. I was such a putz.

Kirsch's class was very much in demand. As a culling technique, he required students to write a 10-page paper every other week. What a way to ensure a dedicated student roster!

At Toronto, I got a good grip on a first-semester course, "History of the English Language," and also took a course on bibliography (which was more than research -- it was also an introduction to the history of books). I loved those classes, and I remember that they shook up some of my classmates. These were Ph.D. students who confessed they didn't know the difference between an article and a preposition. A bibliography course is even more necessary now. At the time, most of the grad students probably remember switching from writing papers long-hand to composing them on the computer, but that's probably not the case today.

My dissertation adviser, F. J. Marker, characterized me as a "theory refugee." Fortunately for me, he was a theater historian with a joint appointment to the English department, so that wasn't a problem to him.

Among my classmates, there were plenty instances of posturing and tunnel vision. As an American who had lived in Virginia all his life, I found myself in an interesting position in a class on Southern American lit, being offered at a Canadian institution.

One fellow, with steely blue eyes and long, flowing Jesus hair, got very excited about Foucault. He could "do theory" like there was no tomorrow. Years later, he told me that a library worker had cleared out his library carrel, throwing out a draft of his dissertation in the process. He said something about filing a lawsuit against that employee and the university. (Didn't he keep a backup? Hadn't he ever heard "Jesus Saves"?)

Another guy was planning to do a computer-assisted textual analysis of The Canterbury Tales (Or was it Paradise Lost?). I thought it was a cool idea, and at the time I was working on a computer project involving medieval drama. While my fiancée did end up joining me in Toronto, I had left behind a big network of friends in Virginia, and I was very lonely that first year in Toronto all by myself. So, one day after class, I asked this guy if he wanted to go out for coffee. He thought about it, then said he had some work to do instead. I later saw him in the library, reading. I never spoke to him again.

I feel like a hypocrite as I write this, but a student to whom I was polite and respectful seemed to get the idea that we were soulmates. She spouted theory left and right, interspersed with the occasional unthinking anti-American remark (which seemed almost obligatory in Canada at the time). For instance, when some text we were discussing featured rather violent and sexual language, this student noted that the author lived in such-and-such a town, and that near the town was an American military base, so it made sense to her that the author had picked up that language from the U.S. soldiers. Every couple weeks, she would call me up and share with me her latest outrages and department gossip. I was always polite, but never reciprocated. After several years, she stopped calling.

One student from Europe launched a whole interpretation of a story (written by a black author) on the premise that one family was white and another was black, and that the white family was oppressing the black one. When I pointed out that the mother of the "white" family used the "n" word to describe her own son, my fellow student paused, blinked, then suggested that the "white" mother was just demonstrating her racism by using a racial epithet against her son. When I pointed out several dialectical similarities between the way the two families talked, and when I showed how both families spoke in a completely different way from a group of characters who are described in the text as being white, he stuck to his guns. He was so interested in defending his interpretation that, when I asked him whether it was at all possible -- under any circumstances -- to use dialect to identify the race of a character in fiction, he said "no." So much for textual criticism.

The one time I made a sudden connection over a literary text was a complete accident. In one of my classes, we were about to discuss some W. H. Auden poetry. I think I was scheduled to be the "respondent" to a paper written by another student. A few days before the class period, I saw her in the halls and said, "Do you want to go to the lounge and talk about Auden?"

The woman did a double-take, then flashed a confused smile.

I realized she wasn't who I thought she was. "Whoops, My mistake," I sputtered.

She was still smiling.

"I think I just accidentally hit on you, didn't I?"

She laughed. "I was about to say, 'yes!'"

Looking back, I am a bit saddened that I spent so little time talking about literature, and so much time fretting over my own shaky grasp of theory. It was a love of books and writing that led me to grad school. Between classes in my first year or so, I read a list of books on my own, so that I could pass a series of written tests. I also studied -- alone -- for a German test. Maybe I just remember it that way, because talking about the literature wasn't hard, but reading, making sense of, and then talking about the theory was a challenge. I suppose we needed to spend that time practicing our ability to "do criticism."

I enjoy spending time with the grad students and other young professionals I've met via blogs or via CCCC meetings, since they are so literate in the theory of their fields. Reading Mike Vitia or Clancy Ratliff reminds me of the best things I took away from my graduate seminars. (Hmm... it looks like Clancy has been goofing off a bit lately, but that's okay -- she deserves it.)

It's cute that those friends think the academic job search is anything at all like other job searches, in which you have a reasonable hope of living in a region you find desirable and getting work commensurate with your qualifications. They don't realize how someone intelligent, competent, and disciplined enough to earn a Ph.D. can be utterly desperate, forced to apply for every job advertised and to take anything offered. --Jonathan Malesic --No Longer a Desperado (Chronicle)

For some reason, a good chunk of the freshmen in my Intro to Literary Study class are talking about grad school this year. I want to be encouraging, but also realistic. What Malesic says about a religous studies Ph.D. applies equally well to an English Ph.D.

Professor Ernesto wants to talk about plagiarism in student papers. Floor open.
Questions: Is there really a problem here? (Smythe)
Professor Ernesto: What?s the percentage of student work that?s suspect? Really, that high? Why don?t we just castrate their damn laptops? That?s obviously where it?s coming from.
Professor Dale notes that the act of appropriation may sometimes be an homage.
Professor Ernesto grabs Professor Dale?s briefcase and shakes out all the papers. Yells, ?This is an act of appropriation, not an homage!?
Professor Dale threatens to deconstruct Professor Ernesto.
The chair brings the meeting to order again. Directs task force of Professors Dale and Ernesto to look jointly into student plagiarism. --David Galef --Last Week?s English Department Meeting (Inside Higher Ed)

We've got an English faculty meeting tomorrow...

"Their parents posted 'Baby on Board' signs in their cars. They have been protected as children. Their free time was replaced by organized activities and structured programs. They have a high need for achievement and attention," said Xavier spokeswoman Kelly Leon.

She said this generation prefers learning from hands-on experience, craves technology-generated education, and feels comfortable working in teams.

"Millennial students do not learn in the traditional ways of 50, 30 or even 10 years ago," said Xavier President Michael Graham. "We need to adapt our campus to their needs and changing times." --'Smart' classrooms, ritzy dorms lure 'Millennials' (Cincinnati.com)

Via Joanne Jacobs.

I am BOTH a teacher who gets papers from students AND a freelance writer who is receiving solicitations for writing them for students. (If I were truly entrepreneurial, I would design a paper so difficult that students would be likely to turn to professionals for "work for hire," then take their job offers under a pseudonym, and write the papers myself -- which would not only net me some easy $ but also make them oh so very easy to grade. Hah!) --Mike Arnzen --The Work-for-Hire Plagiarist (Pedablogue)

Every grader of blue books was once a writer of blue books, so it might help to think about the process from that end.

I remember, with particular shame, a certain undergraduate essay exam of my own for a course in "Modern Moral Philosophy." The professor was Philippa Foot, who must have been in her early 60s at the time. I was wholly convinced by her attempt to renew Aristotelian virtue ethics (I still am), and that was part of the problem.

In answer to her essay question, I parroted her anti-Humean line without really making much of an argument -- as if I were an academic peer chit-chatting or a grad student sucking up. In the margin next to precisely the paragraph where I should have made some substantive argument, she wrote in her strong cursive hand, "But why was Hume wrong here?" and gave me a B or maybe even a B-, along with a note at the end of the exam expressing measured disappointment.

At the time, I was ashamed for having failed to really "do philosophy," as we were taught to say. Now I am ashamed for a different reason. How could I have wasted her time like that?

Professor Foot -- after a good 30 or so years of serious teaching, writing, and thinking, and at 25 years past my present age -- was still correcting the glib meanderings of 19-year-olds. As a student, I owed her more, and as a teacher I wonder whether I will practice the same patience and attention to detail (two of the pedagogical virtues) when I am at that stage of my career.

[...]

I know that the blue book and ballpoint pen are aging technologies, and that the hastily scrawled essay is probably on its way out. But I doubt there is a sound replacement for the requirement of a carefully composed essay on an assigned topic, written in two to three hours, whatever the technology. --Abe Socher --Grading Blues (Chronicle)

Are libraries and librarians willing to support initiative to provide weblog support for their community? The University of Minnesota Libraries think so: “It is our goal to develop a blog server through which everyone in the university community (faculty, staff, and student) can have access to their own individual blog” (University of Minnesota Libraries, accessed December 7, 2004). Other campuses are also providing students and staff with the means to creatE their own blogs. Though not library-initiated, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School hosts “Weblogs at Harvard Law,” which allows anyone with a harvard.edu e-mail address to create their own weblog. (John Harvard’s Journal 2004) Seton Hall University students can create their own weblogs with a service provided by the Humanities Division and the New Media Journalism program ([Jerz], accessed December 7, 2004). -- Reichardt, Randy and Geoffrey Harder, Science & Technology Libraries, 25(3), p105-116. --Weblogs: Their Use and Application in Science and Technology Libraries (PDF) (Science & Technology Libraries)

That's Seton Hill University.

It's a good article, nevertheless.

An ''Aha!'' Moment: Emotion, Opinion, and Fact (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Since my graduate school background is in literature rather than composition studies, I may be stumbling along a well-trod path, but a conversation I had with a colleague in the hall lit off a lightbulb in my head.

Today in my Seminar in Thinking and Writing class (our version of freshman comp), students shared sample thesis statements for a paper on the role of America in global culture.

Last week, students voted on four essays they wanted to read for this unit. I had predicted (correctly) that they would choose the excerpt from Joel Andreas's Addicted to War, a political comic book ("illustrated exposé") skewering the Bush administration. While several students did note on their blogs or in class that the text was one-sided, student after student said, "This is exactly how I feel about the issue." Someone cited a detail from Michael Moore's 9/11 to support one of Andreas's points, and more heads nodded.

Today, when the issue was security vs. freedom, most students said they would gladly give up freedoms to secure their daily lives. One student who desribed in detail the experience of being singled out for additional screening at the airport concluded by saying that she felt patriotic and good about doing her part. Again, heads nodded.

Why was the same class that lapped up Andreas’s angry invective happily curling up with the fuzzy sentimental promises of Homeland Security? Was it easier to go along with what the comic book said, and to go along with the airport security lines, rather than challenge either? Where was the critical thinking? (During class I wondered... what has Andreas written drawn about airport security? Has Dinesh D’Sousa made a comic book that I could assign for an opposing view?)

Since I've known these students for two semesters now, we've built up a rapport where I can, in a smiling, non-threatening, but (I hope) productively irksome way, ask question after question to drive wedges into the tiniest flaws in their arguments. For instance, a student began a sample thesis statement by noting out a conflict between American's perception of itself as the land of the free, and the presence in America of racism. Since he didn’t introduce an historical perspective, I asked him whether, in a country as diverse as ours, people should be permitted to hold politically incorrect views. For example, who would be responsible for determining whether a particular person ever thought racist thoughts? Should all white people be taxed 10% more, and the money used to enforce a "no racist views" policy? If he says that I married a white woman because I am too racist to consider marrying a black women, should everyone just take his word for it? Am I racist because he says I am, or as an American citizen, do I have a right to a trial?

Of course, he had no interest in proposing a new government program to process thought crimes, but he had to think hard to figure out where exactly in my stream of responses I first said something that went beyond his intenion. He would have to come up with a definition of freedom that permits the routine censorship of certain thoughts. A different student started moving in the direction of differentiating between racism and discrimination, which opened the way to separate the moral issue from the legal one. No law can change a person's racist beliefs, but a law can offer protection to the actual or potential victims of racist actions.

Another student said he supports surveillance of citizens if it stops terrorism. After I got him to generalize from “terrorism” to “crime,” I asked what he thought about the U.S. government installing a sensor in his car that would call the cops on him every time he exceeded the speed limit. No, he said, he wouldn’t like that.

I have been trying to get students to move from simplistic normative statements ("Women should not be oppressed" or "Racism is bad") to more analytical or at least descriptive claims.

Sometimes my efforts to exaggerate student opinions backfire, as the other day when an animal-loving student, backed into a corner by some probing questions, admitted that if her dog were dying, and she could save the life of her dog by pushing a button that would kill a stranger in another part of the world, then she would push the button. She wouldn’t do it for just any dog, but she would do it for her dog. Of course, I manipulated her into making that decision; she was probably more interested in not giving me the satisfaction of seeing her cave in than she was in making a serious statement about the value of human vs. animal life, but I was too surprised to go further.

It’s only now that I see her comment as part of the pattern that became more obvious to me today.

The revelation came when I, still pumped up from an exciting class period, chatted in the hallway with Frank Klapak (communications; two doors down). Klapak related something that he picked up in a discussion with Mike Cary (political science; on a different floor).

I am struggling to get my students to see the difference between facts and opinion. According to Klapak, Cary attempts a similar goal by asking his students to reconsider what the term "opinion" means. To someone who has been through graduate school, an opinion is a conclusion -- something that you arrive at after you have considered all the evidence. But what students label as their own "opinion" is probably more often than not their pre-conditioned, unresearched emotional response.

I see this all the time in the behavior of students who first write out "what they think" about an issue, and then go to the library to "find quotes" (facts) that support the claims they have already written. I’ve chalked this up to the active user paradox – the feeling that lateral work, such as reading instructions and doing research and asking for directions, is unproductive when compared to the prospect of sticking to one’s guns and blindly charging along towards one’s destiny.

Recasting “unexamined opinion” as “emotional response” and emphasizing the value of “researched opinion” as something only arrived at after careful research may help. This seems so clear and obvious now that I look at it…

I do try to differentiate between "personal opinion" and "expert opinion," but that sounds like a gradation within ethos, rather than a distinction between pathos and logos (which is what I am trying to teach).

Rather than have students try to move from emotions directly to facts that support their emotions, I hope I can get them to think of a journey from emotions -> research question -> concluding opinion -> thesis.

I spent quite a bit of time sorting through (and adding to) my collection of blogging-related bookmarks. Several of these have been linked here previously, but I thought it would be useful to compile them for easy reference. Here, for example is a (perhaps somewhat arbitrary) collection of blog criticisim links... --William Cole --Blogging Workshop (Donut Age)

A useful collection of links... I'm flattered to be on it.

The implications of scalable theory have been far-reaching and pervasive. In fact, few end-users would disagree with the deployment of expert systems, which embodies the private principles of artificial intelligence. We explore new introspective configurations, which we call KindlerDop.--Shatner, Elmo, Jerz and Nye --An Improvement of XML (SciGen)

Read the backstory behind this random CS paper generator. From Metafilter.

Note the citations to articles by "Elmo, T. M." in the bibliography. Brilliant!

"Just think about it," I would tell them with as straight a face as I could muster, "next Tuesday the Royal Shakespeare Company will be on campus to give their rendition of King Lear." I left time for that news to sink in, and then added: "I'm told that their production is absolutely world class." Then I would thicken the plot by adding that this is not the only cultural event scheduled for next Tuesday. "It turns out, on the same evening, there also will be a performance by a man who, I am told, can fart the 'Star Spangled Banner.'"

This announcement would invariably get the attention from a students sitting in the back row and wearing his baseball cap backwards: "He can really fart 'The Star Spangled Banner'?"

"That's what I'm told," I would earnestly reply.

"Wow, I sure don't want to miss that! And I'm going to bring my fraternity brothers too!"

"I'm quite sure you are," I would say, taking careful note of those students who were in on the joke (they would invariably get A's ten weeks later; and, those yahoos who nodded their agreement would invariably get C's and D's). --Sanford Pinsker --I Know How Much it Costs to Hear the Caged Bird Sing (The Irascible Professor)

A sad anecdote from the celebrity author scene:

Not surprisingly, Ms. Angelou packed the hall, but she made it clear that she was not about to meet with English classes before her reading nor would she attend a reception held in her honor by the Black Students Union after it. As a member of her entourage put it, neither event was stipulated in the contract.

I fancy myself a pretty good sadist when it comes to generating shame and self-loathing in the tardy. If I spot a repeat offender in the hallway before class, and find that they’re not in attendance even after I’ve given them a comfortable buffer of time, I might push trashcans and desks in front of the door, constructing something of an obstacle course between the doorway and the desk so that they realize they can’t sneak into the room unnoticed. In fact, all eyes turn upon them, turning what would otherwise be my lone steely glare into a collective gaze that beams upon them like so many hot spotlights. I don’t even pay attention to them, and just continue my teaching unabated.

Other tricks I’ve tried include: calling on the latecomer to answer a question the second they walk in the door, having students put their book bags on every remaining open seat, and even leaving a note on the board that says “we’re outside” while promptly canceling class altogether. Well, okay, I haven’t really done all these things. But I’ve thought about it, and they’re all in my bag of tricks if I ever get desperate. I have, however, threatened to extend class for as many minutes as it took for the last arrival to enter the room. --Mike Arnzen --Ambush the White Rabbit (Inside Higher Ed)

Welcome to the world of professional paper-writing, the dirty secret of the tutoring business. It's facilitated by avaricious agencies, perpetuated by accountability-free parents and made possible by self-loathing nerds like me. For three-hour workdays, the ability to sleep in and the opportunity to get paid to learn, I tackled subjects like Dostoevsky while spoiled jerks smoked pot, took naps, surfed the Internet and had sex. Though some offered me chateaubriand and the occasional illicit drug, most treated me like the help. I put up with it because I feared working in an office for $12 an hour again. --Nicole Kristal --'Tutoring' Rich Kids Cost Me My Dreams (MSNBC/Newsweek)

--Reading, Writing, Plagiarism, and Academic Honesty (CharlesLipson.com)

Nothing really quotable on this page -- it's a very useful portal designed to promote Charles Lipson's book, Doing Honest Work in College.

They Took It Sitting Down (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

The other night, about a third of my American Lit survey class insisted on sitting on the floor. They pushed the chairs aside and clumped together in the front of the room. The weather was nice, but we couldn't go outside because a student was using her blog for her presentation. So I guess this was the next best thing.

The sitters were bloginators -- part of the core of English majors who put more than average effort into their academic blogging. I think on some level they were trying to assert control over the class. They weren't aggressive or rude about it... in fact, they asked my permission first, so I can hardly call it a protest or a rebellion. I had to position myself in a strange way so I could make eye contact with them and also the rest of the class, but it was a harmless, cheerful request.

American Lit is a general education course, which means that I have to teach so that it makes sense to students who've never taken a lit course, and who may resent being forced to take it. But the students who have had me in other classes have already heard me explain the difference between plot summary and critical analysis; they have heard me explain why it's important to keep up to date on your blog (and not try to get it all done the night before the portfolio is due); and they have heard me give the lecture on the importance of finding peer-reviewed academic sources before you commit to a thesis statement. And they've heard me repeat those lessons several times (since they themselves might have needed a while to accept it). So I can't blame them if they feel a little bored.

I don't require the class to read all their peer blogs, but many of the English majors already read each other's blogs for social purposes. So the most vocal group comes into the classroom already knowing what the most active participants want to say about that week's reading. I had to remind some of the more intense bloggers that they are welcome to blog more than they are required to, but for a while there we had a kind of digital divide. The online part of the class was going well, but the most committed bloggers felt the class discussion was redundant.

Sometimes I feel I'm able to go into much more depth in the freshman "Intro to English Study" course. While the students in that class have a diversity of attitudes towards such things as punctuation and academic research, they all enjoy writing. Today when I passed out photocopies of a book chapter on Death of a Salesman, one of the freshmen noticed my name on the handout and beamed. She held it like it was a precious gift, and she practically cooed, "Oh! You wrote this?" It sounded completely spontaneous, not at all calculated to flatter me. And of course, these freshmen will be among the bloginators taking American Lit survey courses next year... and I'll have to teach them alongside students who don't like writing or reading.

When I humbly went to the Ed school seeking advice, the boss was adamant that I shouldn't even think of lightening up on the course content simply to make the education majors feel less terror (or rage). He pointed out that Ed students take the course to fulfill two area requirements -- literature and American culture. If they feel the course is too difficult, he says, they are welcome to drop the one course and take two others that are less demanding -- if they want to pay double the tuition.

Next year, the American Lit surveys will go from a lecture (capped at 35) to a writing-intensive seminar (capped at 18). I welcome the change, especially because I'm teaching two sections of Am Lit in both the fall and spring terms -- one on Tuesday and Thursday, and one on Wednesday evening. I like that arrangement. The two sets of students will be able to read each other's blogs, but they won't talk about the same things in the classroom. Each week, half of the course content will be freshly prepared just for them, and half will be a tweaked and revised version of material I had just presented the day before.