Editor's Note, December 2003
Elizabeth Haller
Instructor, Central Michigan University
E-mail: editoraee@hotmail.com
The holidays are upon us. It is a time of stress and joy, a time of genuflection and contemplation, and a time to "rest" and plan for the coming year. I don't know about you, but between holiday shopping and time with family and friends, I plan on using the upcoming holiday break to revamp my assignment sheets and lesson plans. I want to take a fresh look at the material, and see what new thoughts and ideas I can impart on my students in the coming semester. However, when I get excited about my ideas, there is an internal voice, albeit ever so small, that says, "But, do you think they'll really 'get' what you're trying to teach them?"
I keep a separate file on my email account where I save complimentary messages from past students. It's whenever this voice appears and whenever I feel like I'm not getting through to my students that I open this file and remind myself that eventually they really do "get it." They really do "get" the proper placement of commas, and the strategies of rhetorical analysis, and they really do "get" how to write a compelling introduction and a logical conclusion. While it may not be evident immediately, it does surface eventually.
So I approach this coming break with an open mind and a glad heart and remember that, all in all, it's been a good year and while I've finally achieved that satisfied sense of organization, just in time for the end of the semester, I can only hope it carries over into January.
Enjoy this month's submissions, and as you do, consider offering us a piece of your work. Check out our Call for Papers on this site for more details on submission requirements. Also, if you are interested in joining our editorial staff, positions are available. E-mail me for more details.
As always, don't forget to check out Grist for the Mill for possible submission ideas.
With this issue we present the third of Lynne Fukuda's three-part series discussing her experiences at the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Puerto Rico. Check out Fukuda's "The View from Here" for an enlightening and personal look into primate research as well as her experiences after research was complete.
Also with this issue we present "A Thief in the Family," an amusing fifth and final ingredient of the five-part series from independent Canadian education researcher Dan Lukiv. "If you will, put up your feet and get ready to laugh a little--or a lot. You're about to enter the Twilight Zone of the absurd. You're about to enter a journey that, believe it or not, is based on a true adventure. Yes, a true story. As the narrator says on the original Outer Limits: 'Don't adjust your [monitor].'"
This month's second feature article, "The Teaching of Cultural Theory in the Composition Classroom," by Anushiya Sivanarayanan, is a "how-to essay on teaching critical theory to composition students (both secondary and college-level) in helping them write scholarly papers. I begin with a critical reading of a student paper and illustrate the need for teaching students the critical vocabularies and frameworks that we academics take for granted in scholarly papers. I use day-time talk shows as texts in teaching certain specific critical theories."
Our third feature is Theresa Monaco's "Gifted Education Research Practices Recommended in Doctoral Dissertations." This is a revised version of an article Dr. Monaco previously published in Academic Exchange Quarterly (http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/). "Graduate students selected and implemented doctoral research in the process of holding full-time positions in local school systems. The research questions were an outgrowth of issues encountered in their daily work. The American Psychological Association (APA) format was adopted to state the problems, identify research solutions, and design and implement a research study. Their findings had implications for impacting the classroom and suggestions for administrators."
We start out this month's Poet's Corner with the second of four groups of poems by Erica Woiwode to be published in AEE. According to Woiwode, "joyful girl" was inspired by what she experiences when playing the piano. "Phoenix blooming" is "about a dear friend who I love and respect."
Our second contribution to the Corner consists of two poems by Neal Hannon. The inspiration for "Thirty-Eight" came from "a friend of mine who confided that the summer of her 38th year was her best year ever. I asked her why and she told me the story that became this poem." Hannon's second piece, "Repeat Offender" is a "story that can have many meanings. On the one hand, it can be about the struggle to break addictions. It can also be about relationships. I would be very interested in hearing from readers about what the poem means to them."
Enjoy and have a great holiday!
Elizabeth Haller, Editor-in-Chief
Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.
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2003 / Updated:
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