Art Adjunct Nicole Antebi has a great video short, “A Week in the Life of an Adjunct,” posted at YouTube. Great stuff! Check it out!

As I neared graduation with my MA in 2006, I received the same great advice from multiple sources: keep your ears open; keep your mouth shut; fly underneath the radar. For the most part, I followed this advice. It served me very well when I followed it. The few times I ignored it, I had a near scrape, bump, or close call. But, overall, the advice was great and ideal for me during my first year of teaching. Frankly, I needed to focus on my teaching.

I still need to focus on my teaching, and I do. However, I also know that I need to build and strengthen my vita if I hope to find a full-time job. It is at this point where the above advice is not nearly as useful as it once was. Like the sandwich model for essays, that advice is an ideal stepping stone for the early stages of adjunct survival and evolution. It was intended to help me through my professional baby steps. However, if followed too closely, that very same helpful advice can damage chances for a career.

Here’s why: keeping your ears open and your mouth shut generally means that you have little to no communication with your full-time and part-time colleagues. If you do have interaction, it probably is not the kind of nitty-gritty pedagogical exchange that raises tempers, thinking, and bonding. It is not the hours of consensus building effort that results in shared rides home, confidential venting sessions, or inside dirt on what the administration is supposedly really up to this week. The interaction is more likely nods, hellos, and how are yous. Nice, polite, and utterly useless-to-professional-development kinds of involvement. No bonding equals no letters of recommendation. Or worse, you thank people for letters more tepid and weak than a thrice used bag of Earl Grey.

If you want a letter of recommendation or a solid reference by telephone somebody with some authority in your department must know you well. They must have spent time with you, seen you handle challenging situations, and hopefully observed you in the classroom. If you are lucky, they will have served on a committee with you. If you follow the silent and unseen path, nobody at your institution can say squat about you. How nice: you are a non-entity.

And when you get that interview. And when you get that call. And when they look at your application. And when they dial that number. Who is going to speak about you? Nobody — if nobody knows who you are or can say more than, “He’s been here a while,” or “She always takes the classes I offer her,” or “Who?” Nobody hires a non-entity.

The point: if you have finished your first year, if you have survived the culling and the self-elimination, set that advice aside. It worked well for children in the Victorian Era and it works well now for teaching newbies. It rocked my house, and it is foundational to my thinking, writing strategies, and professional development. Without that advice, I would likely have mouthed my way out of this field. Keep that advice in mind, but start making connections and building relationships. Teaching is a profession and a career. In order to evolve, you must connect with others. No ifs, no ands, no buts. Your colleagues can help you, guide you, and support you on your way to a new job. It is delusional to think you can bootstrap into tenure without an academic posse giving you props.

This Call For Papers came across the WPA-list earlier today, and it should be of interest to any adjunct attempting to build their vita and/or get published. While this CFP does not expressly seek out adjunct authors or their materials, the call is for pretty reasonable articles. Unlike many publications that require thousands upon thousands of words, this CFP seeks articles that range between 1,100 and 1,400 words. Quite a viable length. On top of that, the topic is not data driven or research based. Instead, the materials called for appear to be functional resource materials. And, you could potentially be helping out other adjuncts like yourself!

While this is certainly not the same as getting your own book published, it is a great opportunity to move on and up. If anything, it will give you experience submitting materials without the work of a five- to ten-thousand word article.

Seize the Day!

This CFP is reproduced with permission of the poster!

CFP (Collection): Don’t Panic!: The Instructor’s Guide to Assignments and Activities for First Year Composition

I am seeking submissions of first-year composition assignments and activities to be included in a resource anthology for instructors of first-year composition classes. The goal of this sourcebook is to provide instructors (first time teachers, adjuncts, grad students, or faculty) with resources for new assignment ideas, new pedagogical tools, and references for assignments and classrooms activities.

The availability of assignment and activity resources for first-year composition will not only allow instructors from colleges and universities across the country to share pedagogical ideas, but also to utilize these resources in their classrooms. By sharing and compiling these resources, I hope to provide a sourcebook that can be used to enhance instructors’ existing syllabi and classroom practices, provide instructors with a resource for constructing assignments and activities, and aid instructors in developing supporting materials for their classes.

Submissions should include the following:
A brief (up to 500 words) course description (including how the
assignment/activity fits into the course).
Detailed assignment/activity sheet, including: Purpose, Objectives,
Description of the assignment/activity, Requirements/Materials, and
Evaluation.
Supplemental handouts, if available.

Please see the attached example for formatting guidelines.
Submissions should be sent electronically, as attachments, in .doc
or .rtf format. Word Count should be between 1100 and 1400 words
(barring supplemental handouts). Please include your name, university
affiliation, and contact information in your email.

Send submissions (and questions) to Vickie Willis at
vwillis at langate dot gsu dot edu. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2008.

During my first term and in my first class about teaching composition, a professor indicated that it was essential for young compositionists — especially adjuncts — to see themselves as entrepreneurs. “Huh?” I thought. “I’m at university to avoid the world of business. I just want to teach — teaching has nothing to do with business.” Yep, I was that naive. I fiercely resisted the idea of educator-as-entrepreneur. After all, reading Peter McClaren, Paolo Freire, and a slew of critical educators told me that it was up to me to resist capitalism in all shapes and forms inside and outside of the classroom. So, that’s a bit over-dramatic, but it is truer than most folks would like to admit. Many graduate students ignore the impact of the marketplace until their ideology means eating Ramen for months.

Critical theory is nice when you have money. Socialist consciousness is easy to pimp when you can afford to drive a BMW and still be able to donate to all of your favorite social causes. I have few problems with that — that is one of the lifestyles to which I aspire. Who knows if I’ll actually get there. However, it is far more difficult to resist the capitalist impulse when you have no cash. Only the upper middle class and rich make living cash-poor look noble. Now, as an adjunct, I KNOW I want to make decent money.

For the past two years, as an adjunct teaching a part-time load, it has become obvious to me what Dr. Professor was indicating: whether or not you like the market, the market exists. With the corporatization of education, it is impossible to resist or deny this notion any more. There are several different riffs on which the idea of adjuncts-as-entrepreneurs is possible.

Riff One: We can view ourselves as providers of services, products, and experiences. The customers can be our students, business people, or the university. If we regard ourselves in a business sense, we must appraise our market value, our compensation, and our treatment.

Riff One Guitar Solo: As one professor so effectively demonstrated to my buddy, marketing is huge — even in academia. Especially in academia. While many scholars like to see and think of themselves as old school or less manipulable than the general public, I doubt the accuracy of this belief. If you, as a hiring committee member, received a professionally produced multi-media package with audio, video, and web positioning plus the normally puffed up CV, wouldn’t you be impressed? After all, the content is pretty much the same as a straight job application, but when you harness the framing and context of Web 2.0, digital media, and the savvy technology of home printing and publishing, an instructor can suddenly become a portable market of happenings, knowledge generation and presentation, and multimedia edutainment. It’s graphic novel on heavy bond paper with multi-color printing versus yellowing 1970s newsprint. We cannot deny the power of visual rhetoric in job applications.

While we may find it “tacky” or unprofessional, we cannot deny the power, efficiency, or efficacy of this model. While some individuals may overdo the process, chances are likely that strategic and smart use of these tactics will result in an edge. And when there are hundreds of applications for work, don’t you want an edge? Many of your peers may look down on the tactics as if they are beneath them, that just means they have made themselves less competitive.

Honestly, riff one — the marketing of self — makes me feel gross. Like I need to shower after I write some “Hire Gregory Zobel NOW!” copy or think of visual rhetoric to spin. Still, I’m getting more and more practice producing copy. (No, I have not been able to send it out yet, and no, I don’t have a DVD of my teaching highlights either!)

Riff Two: As entrepreneurs, we can seek out, cultivate, maintain, and grow a variety of incomes. I have done this for the past fifteen years of my life. It is simply how I exist. I have never made enough money at one job in order to live comfortably. How so? Before teaching part-time, the most I made was $12.50/hour. So, I had to supplement my income.

As an educator-entrepreneur, this means finding a bunch of small, part-time, and easily adaptable sources of income. For me, this means helping my partner list, sell, and ship books online. It means selling books I find and resell at Half.com. It means auctioning off other items for myself and others on eBay. It means trolling for freelance writing gigs. It means writing my Adjunct Advice blog. It means applying for professional development grants and scholarships to attend conferences.

Riff Two Guitar Solo: How I see myself directly determines how effective and efficient I am. This impacts how well I live, and how content I am. If I only see myself as a writing teacher, then I see myself as only doing something part-time. In the middle of nowhere. Probably at a small, underfunded community college. But I do not believe that accurately represents the situation. I am a new instructor working with sincere students who are attempting to better their lives. And because I am an adjunct, I am not burdened with extra academic work, so I can focus on helping them. I can focus my time on writing for other venues. I work other jobs, and this way I maintain balance and variety in my experience. Job variety and background makes it easier for me to relate to my students.

If I was not an adjunct-entrepreneur, I would have too much hubris to do these other things. You see, I have issues with ego, pride, and place. If I only label myself as a teacher, then I am bound to become bitter and angry with being an adjunct. I know myself, and I know this is true. If I regard myself as an adjunct-entrepreneur, then I allow myself the benefit of doing multiple things in multiple arenas, earn a reasonable living, and become a better teacher than just being a part-time teacher alone.

Flaming Drum Solo with Heavy Bass Support for Either Riff: In the end, it is all about positioning. Until you see yourself as a teacher in a productive model that you respect, admire, and know to be effective, you will likely hawk your services for less than they are worth. When creating our own self-image, when creating ourselves as an educational product available on the marketplace, we are the first person who buys or rejects it. If we are not willing to invest in ourselves, we cannot expect others — students or colleagues or WPAs or taxpayers — to do the same.

Fresh off the WPA-list, a list of readings about readings for use in First Year Composition. Thanks to Asao Inoue for asking the question that summoned so many useful replies and for compiling the list below!

Without further delay, and in no particular order:

Ishmael Reed, “Beware: Do Not Read This Poem.”

Keats, “On Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”

Ezra Pound, first few chapters of ABC of Reading.

Christina Haas and Linda Flower, “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning.” College Composition and Communication 39 (1988): 167-83.

Christina Haas, “Beyond ‘Just the Facts’: Reading as Rhetorical Action.” In Hearing Ourselves Think. Eds. Penrose and Sitko 19-32.

Stuart Greene, “Exploring the Relationship between Authorship and Reading.” In Hearing Ourselves Think. Eds. Penrose and Sitko 33-51.

Peter Elbow, “Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals.” College Composition and Communication 46 (1995): 72-83.

Gerald Graff, Clueless in Academe.

Mark Edmundson, Why I Read.

Peter Elbow, “The Doubting Game and the Believing Game: An Analysis of the Intellectual Enterprise.”

Sherman Alexie. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me.” In Cohen’s 50 Essays.

Frederick Douglass, “Learning To Read and Write.”

Malcolm X’s, “Learning To Read.”

Mike Rose, “I Just Wanna Be Average.”

Calib Crain, “Twilight of the Books.” The New Yorker. December 24, 2007.

Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading.

Robert Scholes, Protocols of Reading.

Lawrence Musgrove, “Metaphors We Read By.” Editorial in Inside Higher Ed.

Paul De Man, Allegories of Reading.

As always, David at AcademHack provides great material. Sometimes it is his own writing; other times he shares an invaluable link. This time it’s the latter. I am happy to pass on to you this link vetted by Dr. David Parry: The Best Web 2.0 Applications for Education.

Enjoy!

Yes, the Conference on College Composition and Communication is coming up in just a few months. First week of April. While the conference is going on, there are a lot of different research, interest, and identity groups organizing gatherings. The Council of Writing Program Administrators is one of them. That’s the WPA — the WPA-list is where I go for a lot of material, advice, and insights for my professional development and growth.

In the mean time, the WPA Breakfast is a great way to get to meet, greet, and interact with WPAs. That’s right, you don’t have to be a WPA to join the Council of WPAs. And if you are going to be in New Orleans for the 4Cs and have ever thought about program administration, this breakfast will probably have one of the densest concentrations of WPAs on the planet this year. It is a good idea to be there.

If you are an adjunct and don’t have the cash to go to the breakfast, send me an email: gz7comp@gmail.com. Some current WPAs and WPA-list members have offered to stake for adjuncts’ breakfasts. I’m running this on a first come, first served basis for as many slots as stakers provide.

If you are a graduate student, the breakfast costs $20. The WPA Council uses the Robert Connors fund to offset the subsidy.

If you are willing to donate to support the graduate student subsidy, please donate to the Connors fund. To stake an adjunct, please contact me via email at: gz7comp@gmail.com.

A big thanks to members of the WPA community who have responded with such generosity to stake adjuncts so quickly! Thank you!

Since I was a wee twit, I wanted to be a writer. Ever since I can remember, I have always loved reading. Surprise surprise: I ended up teaching English. That’s a no-brainer to anyone who knows me.

Since I was a wee twit, I also avoided most exercise or physical exertion. Ever since I can remember, I have looked down my insecure nose at athletes. Surprise surprise: I spent many of my college years bemoaning the fallowing of intellectualism while disparaging most physical and athletic cultures. My snobbery in these realms were familiar to those who knew me.

Now, in my wizened mid-thirties, I find myself in an awkward and ironic space. After decades of thinking, believing, and voicing the inherent and natural superiority of the mind over the body, I know myself to have been very, very wrong. I wish I could say I “saw the light” and had a transcendent experience. Nope. It would be cool to say I read such and such a book or heard such and such a person speak, and they changed my life. Nope. The truth is, I found my bitterness and anger towards physicality growing equally with my girth and sloth. Funny that.

When the scales finally forced me to exercise, I started to actually feel better. Less tension, less stress, and so on. I’m sure you already know the litany of praises offered up to exercise, so I will spare you. After all, this blog is generally about composition. My point: physical training improved my teaching.

How so? Well, I’m glad I asked myself that question. [Since the late 1990s, politicians and spokespeople (remember Rumsfeld?) have allowed themselves to ask questions that they then answer. As such, I will do the same -- even though it is, generally speaking, a limp strategy.]

1. After PT, I am more comfortable and happy with myself when I go teach. Training is the perfect antidote to bad hair, a messy backpack, and forgotten paper days. In spite of whatever flusters, mistakes, oversights, or things that may come up in my class, they rarely, if ever, are as difficult to deal with as running five miles, standing in rooted tree for ten or twenty minutes, or doing V-ups. Really. And I know that since I’ve accomplished my goals and conquered my worst doubts in training, that I can be solid in class. It is more difficult to be flustered or distracted by teaching when I am confident and on key.

2. I do not carry lots of residual stress, anger, or frustration into my classroom with me when I regularly work out. Training gets rid of the anxiety and tension. Then, if something happens before, during, or after class, I am less likely to over or under react. Instead, I am calmer and can provide a more reasonable response to the situation. Ditto on grading papers — I work out and then grade.

3. Here’s the big philosophical point: training is a recursive process, just like writing is. You review the basics again and again. You always hone your form. You can always do something a little better, or at least you can approach it in a different way or from another angle. The more you do it — writing or training — the better, more comfortable, and more competent you are likely to become. And so we are engaged concurrently in exactly the same type of process as our students.

If you are both an adjunct and you teach at a community college, please consider participating in a survey being conducted by Jeffrey Klausman at Whatcom Community College. According to his email on the WPA-list (quoted with permission): “I’m conducting some research on attitudes towards and expectations of
WPAs in the two-year college. I’ve created a survey and am asking adjunct faculty at two-year colleges for their input. The survey takes anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. I’m planning to present the results in New Orleans.”

This is your chance to speak up and have your opinion influence research and findings. To participate, follow this link!

Unfortunately, many adjuncts do not take their opinion or their voices seriously. Or, they think that their opinion does not matter. Here is an opportunity to participate. Only if we participate can we generate change.

I make less than twenty grand a year, and I want to go to conferences. Why? Because it’s part of what academics do. So, how am I going to afford going to a national conference? I’m not quite sure yet, but I’ve been working on it. Here are the six best tips that are slowly filling up my conference coffers.

1. Review the conference Web site and promotional material thoroughly. With a fine tooth comb. If you do, you may well find there are partial scholarships or awards available. If you find that information, contact the appropriate person immediately AND add the deadline to your calendar. Brand that date in your head. This could save you hundreds of dollars. Plus, it’s a line on the vita. Last, but not least, getting a grant from the conference helps when you work on #2.

2. Closely review your institution’s policies and programs for professional development. They may have obvious and blatant names, or they may have awkward, hidden, and under publicized (because the program has so little money) names. Sometimes programs or committees publish announcements, but usually they are via email — and their emails often resemble Spam so most folks delete them. Really. Invest the time to locate the proper office and people and ask lots of questions. If you do, then you will discover deadlines and funding limitations. Be sure you plan six to twelve months ahead of time, as well.

3. Budget money over the long term. This means saving money every month for professional travel and development. Saving money means not spending it to go drinking or pay the power bill. Yes, it is very hard, but it is amazing how fast cash stacks up when you dedicate fifty or seventy five dollars a month to your own professional growth.

4. Sell some of those things you really don’t want or need anymore to people via eBay, Craig’s List, or Half.com. You can clean out your closet and add a few Jacksons to your conference nest egg. And doing it early will relieve some stress, make you feel like you are planning ahead, and help you not sell things at a panic price.

5. Write for money. That’s right, write for money. For a newspaper, blog, journal, or whatever. You teach comp, right? You train writers, right? So why don’t you build your vita, step up your writing breadth, and earn some cash, too? And frankly, the experience of writing outside of academia is worth doing it in and of itself.

6. Take on an extra course specifically to fund travel. It can be community ed, a one-credit seminar, or whatever you think will work. But, when you get the check, put all the money into your professional development nest egg. That’s right. Save it. Then spend it on yourself.