The English Council of California Two Year Colleges

i.e. Spring 2011 (Vol. 37)

i.e. Spring 2011 (Vol. 37, No. 1)

Editor: Sean Stratton

Columns

Editor’s Note
President’s Message
TYCA Report
Point of View

Features

The Rhythm of the Kiss: Poetic Seduction in Romeo and Juliet
by Michael Flachmann

“When staging a production of Romeo and Juliet, actors and directors often give considerable attention to the precise moment when the title characters kiss during their first meeting in 1.5. This intersection of lips and hearts, so crucial to the lovers’ journey in the play, can help forecast their romantic destiny through several intriguing prophetic factors, including the number of times they kiss, the duration of the kisses, and exactly when the kisses occur during the metrics and rhyme scheme of the sonnet within which they are encoded. The answers to such questions require not only a careful literary reading of the script, but also an acute sensitivity to the theatrical conventions that inform the lovers’ meeting. If we read the scene through this new and very powerful lens, we can become much better classroom teachers of the play as we understand how the subtle clues embedded in the script encourage us to reevaluate the relationship between this ironic and often misunderstood scene and the entire play in which it resides.”

The Metaphors We Write By
by Adam Bessie

“Slowly, students can see that these metaphors differ based on experience, that the “marathon runner” and the “root canal patient” feel this way for a reason (or many reasons) that have to do with their unique pasts. Optimally, in theory, students begin to see that their attitudes towards writing have been composed through experience, and thus, can be revised. They don’t have to hate writing forever – they can “liberate themselves” as Pugh claimed, they can scrap the draft of their past, and move onto a new page.”

Great Books in the Core Curriculum
by David Joplin

“Great books . . . can also be profitably included in some non-literature based courses. In my case, I include Great Books and excerpts from them among the readings for a non-literature-based class I teach called Critical Thinking. Properly presented, I have found that the Great Books prove not only invaluable in stimulating the kind of critical thinking the course targets but also in expanding the horizons of my students’ world.”

Why Do Students Use “I” Appropriately in Speech Yet Badly in Papers?
by Charles Hood

“Fiction’s use of the first-person point-of-view differs slightly from these points; one very useful discussion of options for pov comes from Jerome Stern, Making Shapely Fiction. As he says, “First person is immediate, engaging, and instantly convincing. You create a distinctive voice, a character, a personality, with the first words of the story” (178). This applies to composition, so the book is worth knowing; his treatment of the tricky biz of second-person pov is one of the best there is.”

Literacy: The Prerequisite to Job Training
by Anna T. Villegas

“At last October’s White House Summit on Community Colleges, Dr. Jill Biden told a small audience in the East Room that for years she has believed ‘community colleges are on e of America’s best-kept secrets.’ Following her introduction, President Obama confirmed her observation: ‘. . .these colleges are the unsung heroes of America’s education system. . .’ As a community college instructor with nearly four decades of classroom experience, I find myself in heartfelt agreement with those sentiments. Two other well-maintained secrets, neither sexy nor seditious—and not sunshined at the Summit—concern me. . .”

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