On Not Teaching Ethics

Mary Gardner sent me an e-mail sharing with me a couple of blog entries made by her Eng 111 students. She didn’t like what these students had to say about gay people after reading articles on gay marriage – but we teach composition, not citizenship, not ethics. So how does a professor who believes in the dignity and equality of human beings, regardless of gender orientation, respond to student statements like these?*********************************************************************Student Student #1 This is just one of the incidents that I read about. There are more diseases in the gay community than any other community. It has been said that the HIV/AIDS virus started in the gay community. Most gay men are undercover, they have wives and children. So do we just sit back and let them destroy their families because we approve of them being with other men? Not saying that heterosexuals don’t contract diseases too, but most of the major diseases started in the gay community. Could this have been prevented? Yes everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Do I believe it’s going to stop? No. We can do something about it by writing to our congressmen and not supporting bills legalizing gay marriages. Approving of gay marriage is not going to help us in the long run -- it’s going to destroy our country and our children.

Student #2 I believe people shouldn't be bothered by what other people are doing; like, get over yourself, dude/tte. If people want to be gay and touch each others hands, and other private areas of the same sex it's fine by me. As long the gays don't try to sway me to their skippidy-do-dah, "My Favorite Color is Rainbow & do I look fat by the way-ways, I see nothing wrong with people wanting to get married, regardless of what kind of sex they prefer. I don't believe that our birth rate will diminish in the future, it will only grow larger and larger, much like a gays... feelings. But really, there's plenty of straight people in the world to keep the children a pumpin'. Look at Ancient Greece for example, they practically invented homosexuality and abusive older men, as well as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". The Spartans also managed to beat a massive army of Persians, I don't think that would've been possible had they not been in such a spirited mood from their morning shield polishings. Gays are good for many things apparently shopping & war being the main ones, because no one fights like a woman trapped in a man's body - and no one shops can shop like a woman with a man's credit card.
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How would you handle this?

My thoughts: Principles that we already teach in a standard ENG111 class actually cover the issues that these offensive posts raise.

Student #2 was trying for humor. Sometimes subjects that are taboo (sex, race, sexual orientation) are popular targets for humorists, so it’s not surprising that Student #2 took this approach. Making jokes about the situation of gays in America is a way to avoid dealing with a serious topic. Instead of “you shouldn’t make fun of gay people”, I would reinforce some lessons from our English 111 text. Our book describes context. In some contexts, jokes about gays will get a positive response (laughter). Is a writing assignment for a college class the right context for this? Had the instructor already laid out some guidelines for comments that disrespect a person based on his or her gender, race, creed, or orientation? (In this case, she had.)

Our textbook also introduces the concept of appealing to an audience. Is it safe to assume that this audience (his instructor and classmates) appreciates humor that mocks a minority group? This tactic has the instructor not lecturing a student on his civic responsibility to respect every member of our society, but rather reinforcing lessons that every young writer needs to learn as part of his or her ENG111 curriculum.

Student #2 ought to also recognize that sometimes shooting for humor is going to interfere with sending a clear and accurate message. It’s not accurate to describe a gay man as “a woman trapped in a man’s body” – I’m not sure whether he’s trying to describe a person with gender identity disorder/dysphoria, or whether he really thinks that’s what gay men are. And, if I might criticize his humor, “spear polishing” would have been way more suggestive than “shield polishing”.

Student #1 presents a more troubling problem. Where Student #2 just wanted to make inappropriate jokes, Student #1 appears to have some real malice towards gay people. I have often heard that prejudice is founded on ignorance, and this student’s diatribe illustrates that relationship pretty well. He or she says There are more diseases in the gay community than any other community. And most of the major diseases started in the gay community. These are prejudice-generating ideas that just aren’t true. My problem with these statements isn’t that they aren’t PC, it’s that they aren’t accurate. It’s well-known that AIDS in America hit the gay community before spreading out to other groups. But that’s one disease – and it’s not one of America’s major killers, either. What are these other diseases the author alludes to? As for diseases starting in the gay community, does this author imagine that gays gave us hepatitis? Rabies? Diabetes? The author also states that Most gay men are undercover, they have wives and children. When my students use the word “most”, they know that means “this is the case for 51% or more of the subject, and I have a research source to back it up”. I really don’t know how many people are secretly gay, living a heterosexual cover-up life, and I’m sure this student doesn’t know either. “Some gay men are undercover” would have been a supportable statement; “most gay men are undercover” implies that this student has some research, which was clearly not the case.

There’s also a logical disconnect here – is this student telling us that legalizing gay marriage would worsen the problem of covert gays in traditional marriages? I would think it would do rather the opposite, giving gay people a societally sanctioned alternative to their sham marriages. Nor do I see from this student’s argument how legalizing gay marriage would increase the rates of transmission of all these diseases that are supposedly coming out of the gay community. This student’s points should support each other. As disconnected as his or her thoughts are, it comes off as a diatribe: “I don’t like gay people, and therefore I don’t want them to be able to marry legally.” Few rational people could take this appeal seriously.

To correct this student, we don’t have to talk about our social views. We don’t have to tell them how they should feel about gays in the military or gay marriage – that’s not our job. But it is our job to tell them how to construct a good argument. A strong argument has factual information and logical inferences drawn from these facts. This student’s position contains neither. The bottom line is that if you don't have good information, you can't have a reasonable argument. This principle has nothing to do with my political leanings or social agenda. This is just composition class.

How do you respond when a student writes something that is prejudicial or otherwise offensive to your ideology?

English Department Committees

We confirmed the 6 English department committees for the year: Literature, Writing, Assessment, Developmental, Professional Development and Placement Testing. If you are interested in serving on one of these committees, and have not yet signed up, please visit the jsrccenglishfaculty.weebly.com site and fill out the form indicating your interest.

Additionally, as you form cadres for the year, please submit this information to Steve Brandon. Let him know if you'd like him to create a cadre page for your group on the weebly site. Cadre groups will have three responsibilities: 1) participation in group discussions throughout the year, 2) review of one syllabi, and 3) one classroom observation. Please keep cadre groups to 8 members or less, for more effective participation.

Animoto tool

Karen Pallay shares a recent and VERY cool animation tool she's using in her ENG 111 classes:


Thanks to my friends at the English Companion Ning, I have found a truly cool Web-based tool called Animoto. This find coincided with my foray into the teaching of a new subject: ENG 01. When I first saw an Animoto demo, I saw a tool for introducing my new audience to the Natural Human Learning Process and a major premise conveyed in the textbook I am using based on that process: students who expend time and effort can learn because humans are born to learn.

How you might incorporate Animoto seems limitless. On the English Companion Ning, teachers reported using it to teach abstract course concepts, to convey basic class policy information, and to provide high-level overviews of--just about anything.

Here's a view of the process involved in Animoto-ing:

• Find a concept you want to teach or information you want to convey.
• Pick a template/theme.
• Add images and text.
• Choose some music
• Let Animoto's magical engine mash it all together.

You'll find Animoto is pretty adept at creating interesting and moving transitions. If the initial result doesn't quite work for you, you can rearrange and add content, and perhaps select a few effects, and then put Animoto to work once again on compiling a result; (hopefully, ultimately) a multimedia experience that delivers the meaning you want to convey.

Educators will want to sign up for an educator's account, which is free and has the features discussed here.

To learn more about Animoto, try this link.

Here is a sample Animoto creation by Karen: http://animoto.com/play/14pN3TC1zT9X5gKc5Lx30g

New Faculty Profile

Congratulations to Jason Lira, our newest full time faculty member! Many of you know Jason from his time as an adjunct instructor here are JSRCC. Jason sat down with me to talk a little bit about teaching, transitioning from part time to full time, and starring in horror movies....

1) Tell us a little about your background and teaching experience, as well as your personal teaching philosophy.

I've taught adjunct for VCU, Richard Bland, John Tyler, and for a couple of for-profit private institutions before gravitating towards JSR. I'm not sure that I developed a philosophy during that time, but I've developed a few guiding principles. I make it a point to treat young students like adults in terms of carrying their responsibilities -- because how else are they going to learn to bear a burden? I act as though all my students are interested in becoming scholars and writers, even when I suspect they are not. I try to teach lessons that are just barely over their heads, because a thing you have to work to master is more stimulating than a thing you succeed at effortlessly. I guess among English professors, it's not too pretentious to quote Browning. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?"

2) Obviously you've been at Reynolds as an adjunct for several years--tell us what drew you here and what you like about the Reynolds community.

I liked the amount of support and advice the full-timers at JSRCC were always willing to offer. I like the diversity of our student body, in terms of age, life experience, and nationality.

3) How is the transition from adjunct to full time progressing? Any major differences that you've noticed thus far? What advice would you have for adjuncts on the lookout for a full time teaching job?

This semester, over the course of the weekend before school started, I went from teaching 12 to teaching 18 credits. This is my first semester doing LCs and my first semester teaching SDV courses and I'm doing 3 of each of those. It's a challenging semester and that's even before I get involved with committees, etc -- but that's not a complaint. To adjuncts seeking full-time employment, I recommend that you get involved with out-of-class activities. Join committees. Attend department meetings. Present a paper at the faculty Research Symposium. Let people get to know your name and face. If someone asks you if you're an expert on graphic novels, say, "I can become one by the time I have to give a presentation".

4)What are your professional interests as far as pedagogy, discipline-specific info, genres, time periods etc.? How are you able to pull some of those interests into your classroom? What do you look forward to contributing to our English Department?

As far as pedagogy, I think my love of freewriting and peer reviews makes me an Elbownian with regard to my writing classes. In English 112, I'm focused on applying classical rhetoric and critical reading to modern media by way of advertising and political discourse. Literarily, I'm most interested in myth and medival lit (I want to develop a Special Topics course in this area). I usually jam a unit on the Pulp writers, along with a question of "What is High and Low Art?" into my 242 classes.

5) Give our readers one interesting fact about yourself--outside of the realm of school.

I try to get my fingers into a lot of artistic pies: theatre, film (screenwriting and acting), short stories, and am just starting to cut my teeth on scripting a graphic novel (based on Indian mythology). I recently played a screenwriter/serial killer in the local indy/horror flick _Lights, Camera, Dead_(The title was not my idea).

English Committees

Here is the link to the description of English Department committees. Please take a look at the list and descriptions and think about what committees you might be interested in serving on.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFphYXZ3QVhrNVBHMDFnZkVZYzBYc3c6MQ