Can you imagine . . .
some one in composition and rhetoric answering an email like this? Maybe I’m committing a faux pas posting this, but I recently had a conversation with another Comp/Rhetor that seemed to believe that everyone (in the room a the time) is teaching writing with the same awareness as she (at least, that’s what I took her position to be), but I’ve heard way too many conversations between non-Rhet-Comp people like this one. Of course, this could have simply been a bad joke, but it does represent a view of student writers that I’ve often heard. And wouldn’t you know it, but soon after this message hit the list a Composition and Rhetoric person called this TA on it
Query: Has anyone else been getting weird emails with lines from _Pride and Prejudice_ in them? Over the weekend I received several emails from random email addresses with the normal spam nonsense subject titles, but containing two lines at a time, each from separate sections of _Pride and Prejudice_. Just curious if this is a virus or a kind of spam others have been receiving, or if I’m receiving Da Vinci Code style clues.
Answer: Yeah, I got about 20 of these about three weeks ago, with a bunch of nonsensical sentences that vaguely related to _Pride and Prejudice_. They seemed to be saying something about the novel, but it was all an incoherent jumble.
No, wait, those were my students’ first essays on Austen. Nevermind.
I was glad the person was called one it. I wasn’t surprised that someone answered the first post in that way, though. I hear enough of that type of stuff every week to know that it will be said in one place or another. And I think that particular listserv is a feeding ground for that type of thing, since many people on it are often trying to be cute/clever/smartasses. I’m glad someone else replied to that ‘answer’ before I saw the message and had a chance to reply. I probably wouldn’t have been quite so diplomatic.
But, in thinking about why it doesn’t surprise me - and why I hear this sort of thing fairly often - I keep thinking about the fact that I am in an office and a hallway that is composed of all sorts of English TAs/students. That is, I wasn’t segregated away in an office of just comp/rhet people. Yeah, sometimes I’m out of the loop b/c I’m not with the other comp-rhet people, but I think I hear a whole lot more of the other culture(s) of the English department. I understand why the group wanted to be together and the I get that it allows for more support, but it does segregate us.
Comment by k8 — November 1, 2006 @ 12:50 am
I agree that having a group of us together was a nice idea, but the reality ends up being that if we don’t have a class together, and everyone from my class is doing minor work, we never see each other. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone in my office. It’s very, very quiet.
795 has helped.
Comment by Rick — November 1, 2006 @ 1:23 pm