January 3, 2024
I have adjusted my semi-retired career path--from striking gold as an author of literary fiction, a writer of popular songs, or alternatively, a posh gigolo--in the direction advised by my psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin Piburn, to market my textbook first. It has been a mere 178 months since I ignored his advice, resurrected my set-aside literary fiction, polished it up a bit, and undertook an agenda of queries and kibbitzing with literary agents and national publishers--"undertook" being the juste mot in light of results to date.
What could an aging egoist do but follow
doctor’s advice? It aimed not at the epicenters of hypercompetitive national
literary, musical, and erotic cultures, but at employment committees at
thousands of far-flung colleges and universities. Yes, I have set my sites on
you, administrators in need of an inspiring visionary in English Composition
Education and a model instructor of the same. Standard modes of teaching
college-level Rhetoric and Composition have been superannuated since the days I
was forced to sit through them. I did learn Composition, but in the style of
Joseph Smith, peering into a dark sack of letters and relying on my talent for
fakery.
I continue to seek a reputable literary
agent--in my folly, or justifiable perseverance--but in addition, I have begun
to beat the bushes in search of a part-time instructorship or lecturer position
in College English Composition, preferably a two-year year institution seeking content affiliation with multiple online, degree-granting consortia.
I seek this job for more than financial reasons. My sole manuscript remaining unfinished is DoubleThink: Workshops for Two-Year College Writing, the nearly completed work that my wise doctor suggested I market first, so long ago. It was a method well ahead of its time, and still embodies truly innovative elements for “hard-wiring” into student minds the traditional strands and objectives of first-year College Composition and Rhetoric--albeit disguised as fun, easy, and emotionally charged. It is a bag of whole-brain tricks blended with close classroom bonding. DoubleThink is a series of aggregating workshops, continually building upon themselves, taught entirely in a writing lab, or in ad hoc cyberspaces. Workshops reflect more than a decade of my research in the area. This work deserves to bud and bloom, even if only as a fleur petit to mask the stink of undergraduate complacency. Its gloss may be synchronized and supplementary to your department's established strands, objectives, and textbook; or it could easily stand alone.
Doublethink Publications, in its first incarnation (in 1995 Colorado) geared itself to facilitating standardized essay testing for GED-seeking workers looking to move up the slaughterhouse ladder. Once I moved to full-time college teaching and acclimated to the pale green limerence of tenure, ease, and cornucopian benefits, I learned the unspoken truth:. Many writing instructors' positive feelings about their lives come from the relative success of the top 20% of their classes. We let the progress of our best students eclipse the lesser skill acquisition or outright failure evinced by the rest--the disenfranchised, disenchanted, disinclined, slaughterhouse men and women, and otherwise non-traditional students.
Still, the aforementioned have expanded their numbers. Millennial post-secondary students--a cell phone-toting brood that expect digital enhancement to fill in the yawning gaps of their reading comprehension, to disguise their lack of critical acumen, and to alleviate their impatience with knowledge-making. They seek a magic button to deepen superficial thinking, improve writing skills, and imbue their slap-dashery with profundity. My work is not a magic button, but it does combine mnemonics for retrieval of structural parameters, operates on a fast-moving schedule, and does so within an engaging cohort.. This is the tip of a work of artful methods designed to retain the casual artlessness of millennial thinking, and inculcate enduring strategy for acquisition and retention of writing knowledge, its relative ease motivating the self-elaborated preference for portable bases of thinking--which in fact are simply new renderings of old Aristotelian strands.
For older teachers, the long-gone link between expectation and result is further aggravated by a steep and steepening learning curve of ever-changing teaching technology. The veteran instructor's perceived uselessness aggravates students' attitude toward traditional methodologies, and they grow ever more supercilious. Arched eyebrows may be the correct response, but really, it's time to redraw them. Such devaluation unaddressed affects both instructors clinging to jobs and students naively relying (in some cases) on college Composition and Rhetoric to raise the potential for improving quality of their professional performance once they land that job in their desired field. Despite little help from formal education, these millennials are bright and pick up improved communication skills through increased self awareness of their text-messaging. I am heartened to see the ice melting.
So, my challenged colleague, I am
seeking--even begging-- to complete my work with you
and other key developers and administrators at your school. If a humble
caricature will neutralize perceptions of stilted arrogance on my part, call me
Mr. Heep. I'll take almost any new berth, adjunct or full time, teaching
college writing online, in a lab classroom, over a closed-circuit network
somewhere, anywhere--and bring strong impetus for solid teamwork and pursuit of
the remunerative rewards available for out-of-the-box thinkers. To complete my
own education, I must participate in honest interaction with
colleagues--faculty, administrators, media services, publishers'
representatives--in addition to sections of incoming students. I'll gladly
share credit and new revenues, should they arise.
Web-Based, Fully Candid Documentation
You will find materials both
directly and marginally related to my application for a spot with your
organization at https://thomastasseff.blogspot.com/, linkable and printable for
consideration by hiring committees with college-level English Comp sections of
to be covered. Sample an improved first-year College Writing course, developed
and tested over a decade. The materials offer a full pictures of my person,
including some unflattering to me and my abilities.
Descriptive links on the right of
the linked landing page open to documents detailing my qualifications. Syllabi,
certifications, student evaluations and collegial recommendations, transcripts and lately some ponderous
personal writing, all downloadable and printable for the convenience of your
Star Chamber vetting.
Lower right links include arcana
and humor to round out my writing persona(e). Personal/commercial blogs found
via the "Tommy George Site" range from factitious fun to vulgar
trash. They require no passwords. You will find more than covers for my
literary fiction as well, for once my beloved editor and colleague passed away
two years ago, I restored all the manuscripts removed at his behest from public
view
.(Note of January 13, 2021: My
editor and personal friend Donald Pardlow has passed away and you will find my
fiction manuscripts relinked to their covers found here.)
All you find written there may
sway you for better or worse regarding my suitability to teach first-year Comp
and Rhetoric for your college, and assemble the fair copy workshops texts and
media segments for DoubleThink for Two-Year College Writing. Many pieces
of DoubleThink are viewable via the Professor Pixil link. My work in
college writing education needs fertile soil in which to bud and bloom. It
needs like-minded departmental colleagues, cooperative effort from your audio-video studios, and among your
curricula committees. The alternative gloss of DoubleThink will supplement your department's
prescribed strands, objectives, and textbook--though it easily could for first-year students.
If you have ventured this far, I
thank you. If my verbosity strikes you as unnecessary, please, remember that
expendability is a relative concept.
Thomas G Tasseff (call me
"Tommy")
Applicant for English Instructorship,
Adjunct, Lecturer, or Other
Call me! (248) 797-7444
"Student Cilia"? One can only ask why would a learned English instructor overreach to feign that he has some high level command of employing use of sham academic terms? It may be that his important work in college writing requires his special alternative gloss to bud and bloom. Perhaps, he actually is a vast, hidden literary treasure.
ReplyDeleteCilla are microscopic hairs, which clear the phlegm and dirt from your lungs, move fluid by rhythmic beating, and are responsible for propelling cerebrospinal fluid in your brain, and assist keeping our other organs and tissues clean.