Thanks for the Help

Thanks for the ideas. It has given me some ideas on what direction to lead my students for their paper topics. I think that I will have them discuss rules, statues, regulations that are created to force people to behave in a certain way (I'm only referring to rules, statues, and regulations that are designed to protect people from themselves, not stop them from harming others) and then create an argument about whether these rules, statues, and regulations are just. Right now, I am planning on having them think about the theme of personal freedom and what exactly it means and entails and I think that this topic would dovetail with it nicely.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, please keep them coming.

Ideas Needed

Here in four short weeks, my Comp II classes will begin working on the persuasive unit of the class. I have been trying to come up with ideas for paper topics. One idea I had was to have the students research (for lack of a better term) Nanny Laws -- laws like seat belts laws where the government is trying to protect us from ourselves, not necessarily from other people. The problem with this idea is that when I tried to do some research on this topic on my own, I was having difficulty finding good, reliable sources. If I had trouble, then my students would most certainly have trouble.

So, I am wondering what ideas you might have. Do you have any suggestions for current topics that would be engaging for students to use to write an argument paper?

A Breath of Fresh Air

Driving home today, I realized just how much I appreciate being able to breathe in fresh air. The air coming in through the vents in my car was very refreshing. It was clean and just made me feel better during the drive. It brought to mind my trip to Philadelphia last April and how un-refreshing the air was. We stayed in downtown Philadelphia and there were very few patches of grass; the areas of grass that did exist in the parks were not enough to overcome the other city smells. During the end of my short stay in Philadelphia, I was longing for the open sky and expanses of green that we enjoy in Kansas. Today reminded me to be grateful for the pleasure of fresh air and sunshine that we often get to enjoy even in the cold months of winter.

What to Say?

I feel like I have not had much to say lately, so I decided to take some inspiration from Facebook. Some of my friends have created lists that tell people some little known information about themselves. I don't think that I can come us with a list of 16 items, so I am just going to begin with one.

Most people probably do not know that when I was in high school I wanted to go to college to become a marine biologist. I think my desire came from watching Jacques Cousteau on television. Whales and dolphins were my primary interest. Unfortunately, WSU did not (and still does not) offer a Marine Biology degree. I did not do much research regarding scholarships available at the appropriate universities so I went to WSU with the idea of majoring in biology. It did not take too many biology and chemistry classes to figure out the science was not my strongest area of study. Ironically, I learned that one of my English professors (the one who recommended that I go to grad school) also wanted to be a marine biologist at one time.

I still enjoy watching shows about whales and dolphins. To me, dolphins seem like the dogs of the ocean and whales are some of the most graceful creatures on this earth especially for their size.

Is Anyone Else . . . ?

Is anyone else as obsessive as I am about making sure to get every last drop of lotion, soap, toothpaste, whatever from a bottle that is nearly empty? I have a cabinet full of nearly empty lotion bottles because there is still lotion left at the bottom but the pump will not suck it up anymore. Eventually I will work on combining all the bottles (really there are only about four of them right now), but for now they are just sitting there . . . waiting . . . hoping to one day be completely empty and placed in the recycle bin.

Getting the Whole Story

Earlier today as I was listening to the radio, they were talking about the following story . The story is about a pilot (with 30 years flight experience) of a passenger plane who told the passengers that he was not qualified to land the plane because there was heavy fog in Paris, so he turned the plane and went back to the original destination. When the radio news person reported on the story, he said that the pilot told the passengers that he could not land the plane. The DJ's then began criticizing the pilot. Having had read about the story yesterday, I was frustrated that this pilot was being criticized when he did exactly what he was supposed to do. It was not that he could not land the plane due to lack of flying experience, but that he was flying a new plane and had not been trained to land it in adverse conditions. Why couldn't the news person explain the whole story? Surely he read the entire new release and not someone else's explanation of it.

That makes me think about how often we do the same. How often do we quickly judge a circumstance without getting the whole story? I know that I often do it with my students. If a student does not come to class or turn in his or her work, I assume that he or she just doesn't care about his or her school work. At times this is the case, other times there is more to the story. I am working on not being too quick to judge or make assumptions, but I'm also not the type of person who likes to pry into other people's problems.

Need to Be Thankful

I'm finding myself a little too tempted to complain about some of my students (I'm in the middle of grading research papers), so that means I need to take the time to find a reason to be thankful. I'm very thankful that I have a job that I enjoy. Overall this fall semester has been a pretty good one. Since I have carpooled with two others, I have been staying on campus a little longer during the day. That means that I can do more grading at school and I have not felt the need to do much grading at home. This semester I have also learned to use my time more productively and get the grading done in a more timely manner. Over the past two days I have managed to grade 20 of the 52 research papers turned in by my Comp students. I don't expect to have any problems completing all my grading this week and next in a timely manner. Next week is finals and then I will have three weeks off before having to return to Hutch. I look forward to being thankful for a little more sleep ; )