[Englecturers] Post on Literacy: Devon's clarifications

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

Two things:

I meant to say "Howdy otro vez" (my Spanish idioms are rusty)

--and--

as for human nature tending toward laziness (specifically my statement that 
"there is nothing lazy about it," I want to add the following:

Because I am a lecturer, I work without any real sense of job security, 
without any real prospect for tenure, without any real chance for even a 
sabbatical, and without any real equity in wages. To provide a wage that can 
sustain my family, I routinely teach eighteen composition classes each year. 
Broken down, this means that I read, assess, grade and offer critical 
commentary on  1656 papers each year (18 classes x 23 students per class x 4 
papers). These papers average six pages each for a total of 9936 pages or, 
conservatively (at 250 words per page) 2484000 words: that's two million, four 
hundred and eighty-four thousand words. Then there are the shorter, in-class 
writings (first rough drafts), the students' secondary drafts sent over the 
internet or brought to my office to read, various quizzes on the reading that 
require short essay answers, freewrites and journals, grammar correction 
sheets (students repairing their work in their own graded essays), and the 
occasional memo and email. Every  quarter, I steel my resolve and vow to not 
lose my sanity or my sense of what is important in my life. And I know of 
other lecturers who routinely take on similar teaching loads: there really is 
nothing lazy about it. In case anybody thought I was being flippant, I 
apologize; I was tired.


Devon Hackelton