Hello!

[Pardot Kynes]

Thanks for all the replies everyone

Omphalos, putting something together would be awesome. I have some Dune powerpoints (I know, the teacher's crutch, but in my defense I had to travel through other teacher's class rooms, didn't have one of my own, and never knew if I could write on their boards) and worksheets. We watched the begining of the mini-series and picked up in the middle of the book. Watching the mini-series was an attempt to build prior knowledge and give them visual references, since apparently struggling readers have a problem visualizing. I think this book would be great in World Lit. ATM, I'm planning on teaching Kite Runner, but there is still time to change.

What were you thinking of teaching in your college course? I *loved* the sci-fi class I took...AMAZING...one day when I catch up on teaching and my 2 year old gives me a moments rest I'm going to try and publish a paper I wrote about Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood and the hierarchical nature of the english language...a girl can dream!

This is why I love lecturing. They listen to you, and all you need is notes. No technological fiddle faddle.


Also, I hate Kite Runner. Its an alright book, but 99% of its power comes from the truth of it and the subject matter, not good writing.






I am Pardot Kynes- I have a master's degree in Philosophy and a PHD in Classical mythology (not the title of my PHD, but its rather long and to be honest, I don't remember it). I am currently trying my hardest to get tenure somewhere, and am currently a guest lecturer on occasion. Due to my religious beliefs, I get kicked out of rather alot of places

Unlike most people with a doctorate, I'm not really very proud of mine, since I got it from a shithole school. My goal is to become a professor at a community college in the same city as a prestigious university and see what opportunities present themselves.


Welcome, to Jacurutu, where we cockroaches thrive.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Due to my religious beliefs, I get kicked out of rather alot of places

What Religion are you, if you don't mind me asking?

[Pardot Kynes]

Due to my religious beliefs, I get kicked out of rather alot of places

What Religion are you, if you don't mind me asking?

I used to be a High Druid. I decided most of that was bullshit, since no one actually practiced Druidism- it was a bunch of hippie fucks who came in on the weekends to get high and ask about how a tree has any significance at all in the grand scheme of things.

So now I practice alone, and live alone, and when I can, I read in my grove all day. I am no longer a druid- I give myself no label.

[LiquidBlue]

This is why I love lecturing. They listen to you, and all you need is notes. No technological fiddle faddle.


Also, I hate Kite Runner. Its an alright book, but 99% of its power comes from the truth of it and the subject matter, not good writing.

I wish I could lecture...that is the way I like to be taught and the way I would like to teach, but note taking is something of a mystery to my kids...they get spoon fed from the evil power point ("Write down the red parts...you don't have to write whats in blue" ) and now they can't do it for themselves. I do make them take notes and I grade them, but its pathetic. Next year, its note taking from the start! As soon as I'm finished closing on my house, its into graduate school!

I haven't read Kite Runner yet. A friend of mine taught it last year and gave me all of her worksheets, tests, and book on tape. I had one of her students and she enjoyed the book. I'll be reading it this summer, so we shall see...I'd rather teach Dune...

Good Luck getting tenure! It sounds like you have an interesting degree...I'd rather get mine in some sort of Lit or Linguistic theory instead of Adult Ed w/a track in English, but adult ed sounds more practical...look at where my "non-practical" Englsih degree go me...argh!

Nekhrun
Sounds like you have your hands full! The freedom must be nice though...all of our teachers must answer to the almighty scholastic gods (they do class checks at random and yell at you for teaching something as far fetched as grammar in an English class)...I would be really interested in seeing what you've created for Dune. If you're students enjoy it, chances are mine would too...most of my kids have been to or are on their way to naughty school/jail/parole...its sad and I want to help, but I have a hard time...


Serkanner

McDune had me RoTFL, so true...

[Pardot Kynes]

Kite Runner is a good book to teach- I just didn't like it much.


Try having them read something emotionally devastating, if they are all the "bad" (ignored) kids. Something like "The Portrait of Dorian Gray".

And thanks for the well wishes.

[SandChigger]

Harrrooooh! And welcome.

Sorry to be so late to the party!

I wish my students were advanced enough that I could use Dune. (Some of the seniors might be able to swing it, but they're all too busy looking for jobs and trying to read for their graduation theses. And none of the lit teachers are into scifi.) Still, I used some passages from Grunters in a grammar seminar after it came out.


(Curious as to what specifically you meant by "hierarchical nature of the english language"? )

[LiquidBlue]

SandChigger
Surface level, the text of Dune shouldn't be too hard...I attempted it because scholastic says its a 9th grade reading level...

(Curious as to what specifically you meant by "hierarchical nature of the english language"? )

Most of my essay applies ideas from M.J. Hardman's essay "The sexist circuits of English"
(I used some other ones from her, but I can't recall their titles)

"The structure of English persuades us, both gently and not so gently, to think in sexist ways. Because our grammar leads us to see human relationships in sexist terms, we use that model to structure our relationships with other human beings, much as the laws governing slaves were based on the laws then governing women. Language and culture are on a feedback loop; changing one changes the other in complex interactional ways.
...
To account for a particular constellation of linguistic postulates in English, I have developed the concept of derivational thinking. Three linguistic postulates in English interact in mutual reinforcement. These three are: number (singular/plural), sex-based gender with masculine as the root, and our ranking comparative/absolute (wise, wiser, wisest). These are further reinforced by a number of other sentence-forming and narrative patterns. This derivational thinking forms the grammatical base for our general model of human relationships."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 47677/pg_1

I also worked in Samuel Delaney's Babel-17...

[Robspierre]

Power Point can be an excellent tool but too many use it to in a way that sucks the life out of a class Nekhrun has a power point jeopardy style game.

I've used Robbie Burns poetry and songs, traditional Scottish music and recordings of proper pronunciation to teach dialect using Broad Scots to 8th graders who were having a hard time grasping the concept of dialect.

I wouldn't mind having the non-honors/trouble students, I've found that in many schools a teacher actually has more freedom with those students, at least in the school districts i've observed in.

Rob

[A Thing of Eternity]

Due to my religious beliefs, I get kicked out of rather alot of places

What Religion are you, if you don't mind me asking?

I used to be a High Druid. I decided most of that was bullshit, since no one actually practiced Druidism- it was a bunch of hippie fucks who came in on the weekends to get high and ask about how a tree has any significance at all in the grand scheme of things.

So now I practice alone, and live alone, and when I can, I read in my grove all day. I am no longer a druid- I give myself no label.

Sucks checking off the 'other' box under religion. I'm really suprised that they'd make you specify any further than that though.

[Illogical Banana]

Hello and welcome!

Chigger-san teaches in Japan, so that's probably why his students aren't able to handle Dune.

[Pardot Kynes]

Due to my religious beliefs, I get kicked out of rather alot of places

What Religion are you, if you don't mind me asking?

I used to be a High Druid. I decided most of that was bullshit, since no one actually practiced Druidism- it was a bunch of hippie fucks who came in on the weekends to get high and ask about how a tree has any significance at all in the grand scheme of things.

So now I practice alone, and live alone, and when I can, I read in my grove all day. I am no longer a druid- I give myself no label.

Sucks checking off the 'other' box under religion. I'm really suprised that they'd make you specify any further than that though.

It doesn't really become an issue until you give a lecture on the history of Irish Myth and Culture.

After that, your pretty much on everyone's blacklist (it's not my fault some of the student's decided it'd be fun to try and perform some outdated rituals).

[A Thing of Eternity]

Due to my religious beliefs, I get kicked out of rather alot of places

What Religion are you, if you don't mind me asking?

I used to be a High Druid. I decided most of that was bullshit, since no one actually practiced Druidism- it was a bunch of hippie fucks who came in on the weekends to get high and ask about how a tree has any significance at all in the grand scheme of things.

So now I practice alone, and live alone, and when I can, I read in my grove all day. I am no longer a druid- I give myself no label.

Sucks checking off the 'other' box under religion. I'm really suprised that they'd make you specify any further than that though.

It doesn't really become an issue until you give a lecture on the history of Irish Myth and Culture.

After that, your pretty much on everyone's blacklist (it's not my fault some of the student's decided it'd be fun to try and perform some outdated rituals).

I can see how that might go... astray.

[Pardot Kynes]

I explained the principle of a Druid's grove, and how they used to clear ground for it by a controlled burn, and then would plant the seeds in the ashes. It took years for one to grow.

One night, shortly after my lecture, they got drunk and decided to start their own grove in the campus' park area.

That did NOT go over well with the staff, and for some reason it was blamed on me. I was accused of trying to "convert students to a satanic religion and encouraging vandalism".

Don't think I'd go back if I was asked, the pricks.

[SandChigger]

Why, Pardot, you're a Druid Rebel for Lucifer!

Kewl!

Thanks for the link, LiquidBlue.

Hmm...some of her conclusions seem a bit...extreme. The ole linguistic determinism debate, derivational morphology leading to a derivational view of the world?

I wonder, too, if there isn't a some of the ole infatuation with the "noble primitive" in play. By way of contrast, Japanese is like Jaqi in not making a fundamental singular/plural distinction, does not derive nouns for females from those for males, and does not express qualitative rankings using inflectional morphology. (No, the last is expressed syntactically as English also does for certain classes of adjectives: interesting, more interesting, most interesting.) And while there's a stronger group-orientation, Japanese society is every bit as sexist as (and actually somewhat more so than) American society. (And was so long before any contact with Westerners, so it's not contamination.)

Sorry...guess I'm in a futzy mood. (Been reading KJA earlier, you know. Always makes me grumpy. )

Anyway, I'd still be interested to see what you did with her ideas.

[Pardot Kynes]

So nice of you to call me that



Who are you talking about now?

[A Thing of Eternity]

I explained the principle of a Druid's grove, and how they used to clear ground for it by a controlled burn, and then would plant the seeds in the ashes. It took years for one to grow.

One night, shortly after my lecture, they got drunk and decided to start their own grove in the campus' park area.

That did NOT go over well with the staff, and for some reason it was blamed on me. I was accused of trying to "convert students to a satanic religion and encouraging vandalism".

Don't think I'd go back if I was asked, the pricks.

That's a pretty big stretch, might as well blame history class for war. If a kid poisons someone after seeing Hamlet is it the Drama teacher's fault?Idiots are idiots and can draw idiot inspiration from anywhere. They actually said Satanic? Where do you live in that people think Druids are Satanic? I know I must be a naive person because stuff like this honestly suprises me, it probably shouldn't.

[Robspierre]

I see Pardot lists his location as Texas, he must be outside of Austin because that would be the only place in Texas that wouldn't consider druids satanic from my experiences.

Pagans are not looked upon favorably in certain parts of the US.

Rob

[SandChigger]

Who are you talking about now?

SHE...Her whom we name not in the dark of the moon.


(M. J. Hardman )

[orald]

Hi there, Liquid!

I'm also a kind of a teacher- I teach by example. I teach by tyrany and violence in the hopes of edjucating and maturing mankind and condition a female-only army to worship me as their god.

I wonder just how adaquate this mini-series is for teaching the books since it's filled with heretical and sinful diviations from the holly scripture of Dune.

Don't worry, you could never make comments more irrelevant than 90% of what a certain user calling himself orald posts...

oh snap. (it's funny cuz it's true )

I know, right?

Taking shots at me while I'm away, hmm? Well, these were very on-topic too.


I'm also religiously persecuted. Most people don't recognize me as God Emperor of Earth.

"The structure of English persuades us, both gently and not so gently, to think in sexist ways.
*yadda yadda*

Hillary lost this round already. *yawn* Now go back to the kitchen and make me a slig sandwich, woman! Please?

[SandChigger]

Another rought day on the pumps there, 'D?

(By the way, do you wear pumps when you go out in drag?)

[Pardot Kynes]

I live in the Bible Belt, but the place where this occurred was in Michigan.

[orald]

Today I had an american customer who of course couldn't read the pump operations etc. I was so nice I all but offered some fine sucky sucky(me love you long time!) but he didn't tip me.
He looked rather like you, Chig- middle-aged, rounded and bearded...but no pincers or multi-faceted eyes I could detect.

'Twas nice to practice my English aloud though, and not to myself as usual.

[Phaedrus]

Don't worry, you could never make comments more irrelevant than 90% of what a certain user calling himself orald posts...

oh snap. (it's funny cuz it's true )

I know, right?

Taking shots at me while I'm away, hmm? Well, these were very on-topic too.


I'm also religiously persecuted. Most people don't recognize me as God Emperor of Earth.

"Taking shots" isn't quite accurate...and I didn't realize you were EVER away.

[orald]

Sure I was away, I stayed at my sister's for the whole of yesterday's night(the whole whopping 4 hours of sleep I got before I got up for the next shift), without touching a PC or checking the internet! 'Twas hard going, but now I'm getting my fix back.

[trang]

Hail and Well Met and Welcome!