Most people try in vain to put words to loss. Even as I sit here, with the fresh urge to write this post making my fingertips itch, I am staring at a blank screen. I have a date, a title, a few lines. I believe that this wordlessness marks our most intimate experiences—sensations born in … More Open Letter
The young writer struggles with self-definition. So many incredible reputations hover above us, casting sparks in all directions. Every established literary presence is crisp and luminous, an identity in complete control of its own labels. So I ask my poetry for this control, and it withers. I find I possess nothing worthy of a poem. … More I Ask My Poetry
“To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity, that alone is living the artist’s life, in understanding as in … More “Affluentia Poesis”: Meeting Poetry in the Universe of Possibility
In the midst of chaotic or new experiences, I am always soothed by the familiar. So as this semester began, I decided to return to the work of one of my favorite fantasy writers, Sherwood Smith. I first encountered Smith’s novels Crown Duel and Court Duel in high school, both books bound together in a … More Craft and Fantasy: A Response to Sherwood Smith
When I was nine years old, I longed to use the words amiable, countenance, and clergyman – though they never appeared in my spelling or phonics workbooks. I knew what it meant if a manor was entailed away, and I guessed that £2,000 in the 19th century was a sizable fortune. I understood that the … More Lasting Impressions
Today the Disability Rhetoric blog published my essay, “Voices in Error: Counting against Competence.” In this essay, I describe an ongoing conflict in my teaching practices – counting errors and standardizing student voices. Here is how the essay begins: “Before I begin teaching in any classroom, I must tailor the environment to my specific needs. … More Essay: “Voices in Error: Counting against Competence”
With other disabled writers, I participated in an interview for the September issue of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature: “Jill Khoury, Emily Lund, Emily Michael and Kristen Witucki are four writers whose work in poetry and fiction has openly addressed issues of physical disability. Wordgathering invited them to take part in a … More Interview: “Dialogue on Blindness and Writing”
This article appeared in the National College Learning Center Association (NCLCA) Summer 2014 newsletter under the section, The Tutor’s Voice. * * * The lobby of our campus tutoring center resembles a doctor’s office. Students occupy moderately comfortable chairs, waiting to hear their names from the friendly voice from the writing room. A writing tutor … More Exploring a Writing Tutor’s Magic
This semester, I am living out one of my long-cherished dreams: teaching a series of intensive grammar workshops for multilingual learners and struggling student writers. On Friday afternoons, my colleague and I face a group of students who willingly admit their bad relationship with grammar. So far, we’ve had four sessions, teaching anywhere from 2 … More Total Revision: Conversations in the Red
My favorite teaching duty is course design. Though I hardly control every aspect of the courses I teach – the text choice, the policies, the measurable learning outcomes – I can arrange the order of readings and daily activities. I particularly enjoy asking my students to draw connections between seemingly unrelated texts. I’ll take a 2008 TED … More The Pen and the Playground
If you are asked to dredge up the principles of grammar you learned in middle school, you might give voice to the following claims: An independent clause can stand alone A dependent clause can’t stand alone. A sentence fragment is an incomplete thought. When I hear these claims from grammar unenthusiasts, I notice two things. … More The Sensuous Semicolon—and Other Romantic Punctuation
As a writing instructor with low vision, I spend my life trading between a large white stick and a small white stick. The large one, of course, is the cane that helps me navigate my work environment. I open my classroom door, cane in hand, and proceed to my desk. At the desk, I fold … More I Only Have Eyes for…Grammar: Creating a Multi-Sensory Method for Teaching Writing
For the past year, our department has included an essay from Temple Grandin’s The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s in the reader designed for entry-level composition courses. The excerpt is called “Teaching How to Generalize,” and I assign it for several reasons. For most students, this brief essay provides … More Everyday Activism: What We Do with Disability
Just before lunchtime, I receive an urgent call. The colleague, whose class I’ll be taking over in two weeks, needs me to start tomorrow. Tomorrow!? I’d planned to go in and observe tomorrow; I’d given the assigned poems a cursory reading. I wanted to sit in the back and be unobtrusive. I must dispense with … More Blind Teacher II: The Saga Continues
Today my campus is covered in words. All over our sidewalks, the following messages call out in cheerful pastel chalk: “Delta Gamma’s purpose is to stop blindness before it starts.” “80% of all blindness in adults is preventable or curable.” “Delta Gamma’s service for sight began in 1936 to stop blindness before it starts.” “1/4 … More Walking on Words
On the Blink 