Teachable Moment - "Recognizing" Humor

I've been researching ways to teach humor to my creative nonfiction students, as this is by far the hardest unit to really pin down, I've found. So, like always, I try to just Google my way to something curious, a way to spark my own inner teaching muse. I like to think if they can find cool stuff on Google, so can I. Why not show them the best of the web, when appropriate.

So after a crystal-ball-type-search of "Why is humor individual?" I came across this astoundingly logic-based blog posting. It reads like one of those really great Newsweek articles that you find wedged between all the horrors of politics and the economy. A spark of something truly, intellectually brilliant, in a shiny-magazine-article-packaging way: humor can be understood as a cognitive act, i.e. we've sorta figured out how the brain recognizes this thing called humor. The first paragraph as an amuse bouche:

"The theory is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter."

Humor is based on patterns. When I recognize something (it is now a pattern, having occurred more than once), it makes me laugh as a reward for being observant. I notice something "funny" about my hubby--his fly is unzipped, let's say--I laugh because I recognize that it should be up, not down. The pattern of zipped flies is broken by this oddity; I get a laugh at his expense because, hey, I noticed it first. This type of humor, I can only imagine, strengthens when the actual "oddity experience" becomes a pattern. So, when I notice my hubby's fly unzipped the fourth time this week, it's EXCEPTIONALLY funny, because a) I recognize that it should be up, generally, and b) I recognize that he does this all the time. Double Bonus Humor.

The article does say the humor of patterned content IS debateable though, since "no content can be inherently more or less funny than any other. It's all about the person looking on the scene, since "[t]he individual is of paramount importance in determining what they find amusing, bringing memories, associations, meta-meaning, disposition, their tendency to recognize patterns and their comprehension of similarity to the equation."

What I'm really interested in, though, is trying to push my students to understand this by looking at two humorous essays of completely different styles and subjects. When I have taught these two essays together (in the past), students invariably have one that they like better. Why?, I ask. They usually can't explain, and if I try to do the same it ends up begin more about technique than an actual preference. (Thus the curse of the lit major. We can't just read an essay, we deconstruct it, right?) I'm happy with just figuring out what we like in these, but as we move toward actually writing humorous pieces of their own, I want a stronger arsenal of suggestions.

I'm thinking/hoping to use this article as a springboard to help them deconstruct their favorite scene (after an interim away from the piece) and see what patterns might exist. Then, to move forward, I'll ask them to think about patterning something that the reader can associate with, as a way to better their chances for being humorous. I'll tie this to a freewrite they'll have just done on "life's irritations" or "obsessions & phobias" and I'm hoping, convince them to make these seemingly inconsequential subjects "ring true" in the minds of the readers. It should make them laugh every time, right...at least that's what all the latest research shows. : )

Two Words (ok Ed, three!) - (You) Read This!

Perusing the web for an article on active and passive voice usage in business communication (for my professional writing students) I stumbled across Ed Barr's really great blog.

My favorite recent posting is entitled "You only need two words."

I think this concept of "concision as emphasis" is fabulous for professional writing students, and in some ways can be a basis for creative writing as well. It's not always about how much detail you can add. It's not the fancy words or the beautifully extended metaphor. Often the most profound messages stand out simply because of their, well, simplicity.

To me, these statements share another commonality, (which I've fixated on since I just prepared a lecture about sentence structure). These two-word sentences only include a subject and a verb. An object is not included, not necessary. These sentences focus on the action of a single entity, and declare a type of singularity. One person, one action, one moment, one impact. These sentences expand emotionally because they define only a single point out there somewhere. It is the reader's responsibility, then, to position herself in regards to the sentence. "How does this change me, now?" she might ask. What has ultimately been accomplished, then, is a sentence that necessarily engages the reader by not dictating how she must relate to that new information. Relationships are made, but they are more profound since the reader is part of the process. She understands.

Teachable Moment - Careers, Lives & the "Big" Decisions

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about careers and how people make a living. As I mentioned before, I'm teaching a few sections of a professional writing course, and this particular course always makes me think about "what else" I should be teaching. I'm not just showing them how to write memos and emails, this class is about making a series of important professional decisions. The first decision is to take the course and improve their writing skills...good choice, I'd say. The second is a unit where we deal with application packets. Let's apply for real jobs, or at least see how close we can get to a decent application.

What I sometimes have to say is "Don't just pick the job you think you have to apply for." What I really want to say is "Imagine yourself at this job for 5 years. Do you think you will like an 8-5 in a cubicle? Do you like the prospect of paying off student loans on 'commission only'? Will this allow you to do all the things you've been doing in college that you love, like hiking or sports or traveling?"

Nobody asked me those questions in college. Nobody even really implied that, hey, one day you'll HAVE TO GET A REAL JOB! How can this be?!? I'd say it was a bit of good karma from my end...so a brief synopsis for those who may not already know...

Luckily, I followed the "traditional professional path" of a literature major / creative writer and went to graduate school. Luckily, I was awarded a teaching associateship. Luckily, I loved teaching. Luckily, I was hired by the same university from which I graduated (i.e. I worked the network and had minimal "application requirements"). Luckily, (after a brief stint in direct mail marketing) I came back a second time to the same university at a higher pay rate and more stability. Luckily, I survived a horrendous economic tsunami that rendered many of my former colleagues job-less and benefit-less. MOST luckily, I still love my job.

I still have a hard time dealing with the fact that I, anal-retentive super-planner me, just went with the flow. Only when I went back to teaching a second time was I truly choosing my career path in all honesty. Why, do you ask? Because I hated working 40 hour weeks in an office. I didn't like being told when to come in and when to leave. I didn't like having to take a full hour for lunch. I didn't like not being allowed to work 40 hours in 4 days to get a three-day weekend every once in a while. I didn't like having to constantly "team-build" during meetings and forced social outings. I didn't like being stuck in job where I was paid, and valued, based on my "direct experience" and not on my "life experience."

Teaching was my out. It was also my passion. It also was flexible enough to make me feel like a whole person every single day. What does that mean? It means I can keep house, walk the dogs, run errands, cook a homemade dinner, spend quality time with my husband, AND make a contribution to the life of a developing writer/professional EACH AND EVERY DAY, all in one day. It's as close to making everyone happy all the time that you can get. I love my life, my students love my teaching (mostly, ha) and accessibility nearly every day of the week, and ultimately the department loves that students write great things about me on course evaluations. Win-Win-Win.

So what can I do to help these fledgling professionals? Reiterate that a career is something you will commute to, sit though, and actually do work for every day, hopefully, for the rest of your life (with some advancement and changes of course); it's a package deal, though, a career...so it's not just about the dream job on paper, it's about the type of work that fits your life, the one you had, well, long before you ever put your nose to the proverbial grindstone.


Where did all this come from? A funny little article the hubby sent, about "overrated industries." For the record, #1 is a dream we dream together, though we're both too rational to ever jump in (knock on wood!)

Teachable Moment - Business Memos

And I thought I knew just about everything, j/k...

I'm teaching 3 sections of a professional writing course this semester, and, as always, the first assignment proves to be a bit of a challenge for my students, i.e. omg wtf do you want me to do?!?

The Assignment: Write a memo evaluating a sales message for effective communication.

The Question: "I don't have my book yet, so I what is 'memo format'?"

The Answer: I'll just google "memo format" and get something easy as a proxy.

The Complication: This article, which I desperately want to share, but seriously, not as the very first thing I show an assignment-overwhelmed student. HA!

The article provides a cogent, near-academic (but somehow SO NOT academic) approach to the science of visual rhetoric, document production, and the ills of worshipping at the altar of Word Defaults. The writer is truly taking the audience-centric "You" attitude I preach, and is considering (on a tab and space and leading level) how we actually SEE a memo and the DECODE that information more or less quickly. It's brilliant, and frightening, and, well, the kind of stuff that just gives me the willies.

I have never so seriously considered my entire writing life with a healthy dose of oh-god-did-I make-the-Example-3-mistake!?! dismay. In some ways it is an epiphany and a radical departure from everything I've ever thought to consider about the banality of business document composition. In other ways, it's the kind of tedious, nit-pickingy type of thing students despise instructors for expecting. Thus the perils of the academy and its academicians perched precariously on the edge of obsessive attention to curricular detail (we so desperately want to teach everything, really, even the crazy, tiny stuff like this).

I'm thinking now that this blog might just be the best thing going for my teaching. I can obsess and digress, they can inquire and be inspired, and we can carry on these fabulous discussions without the formality of the classroom, or the stingy "allotments" of the classroom.

If only I can get them all to read it...at least a little...without me.

Teachable Moment - PowerPoint-ers

Today's lesson involves a much-bemoaned topic among academics and business professionals alike: PowerPoint (and death thereby). It's a technology with so much potential, yet it is used, quite frequently, as a torture device.

Tonight, I am teaching presentation strategies to a group of upper-division writing students. A lecture I did previously involved the most heinous PowerPoint presentation ever. It involved a pink-on-pink color scheme, a swirly, unreadable font, and an inordinate amount of "Animations." The pièce de résistance in the whole affair was my appearance -- no makeup, a ball cap, and some seriously ratty pajama pants. It was dramatic, and tragic, but utterly the most engaging lecture I've ever put together. Freak them out a little, and students will listen to what you have to say, well, for at least 10 minutes or so until Facebook-withdrawal kicks in.

As I was preparing my lecture materials this morning, (more accurately, as I was blog-hopping trying to avoid preparing my lecture materials) I ran across this video as part of a Sales Machine blog posting, a comedy routine by comedian Don McMillan entitled "Life after Death by PowerPoint." I think it's just as convincing, and his delivery is quite nice in the 4 minute skit.

If I can save one room full of potential clients from a near-death experience, I think that's justification for a teaching career, don't you think? Enjoy!

Teachable Moment - American English Dialects

I wanted to introduce another recurring post I'm planning, called "Teachable Moments." I love teaching 18 to twenty-somethings, because they are old enough to ask the real questions. I hear little kids do this took, since they don't have the internal censor/sensor yet, but I feel that after you leave home for the first time as an "Adult," for a little bit of time the censor/sensor shorts out, too. I love this. And I love answering the questions, since they often change the nature of my student-teacher relationship to learner-mentor, which I think is vastly more productive (and I end up learning just as much in the process!).

A current student in a ENG 102 (second-semester freshman comp. course), who happens to be an international student, AND happens to be taking my class via the Internet from Jordan (oh, how I love technology!!), asked the following:


Today, me and my Jordanian co-worker were talking about dialects and accents and he has asked me the following (while trying copy my American accent, haha): "When the Americans who were originally British came to America along with Pres. Washington, they spoke English with a British accent of course. How then did the American accent come to be? And how did you (talking to me--meaning Americans) get used to it?" Now as an American I'm supposed to know this lol. Sadly, I don't. I wanted to give him a good answer, so please give me your thoughts if you can and want.


I thought I'd try to find an academic article from the library (but the ones I found were so entrenched and overwrought with detail), then looked around on Google for awhile. I stumbled across some class notes from an Intro to Linguistics class that fit the bill perfectly. I also sent the following response:

This site seems to be a pretty good description of the reasons for American dialects and differences in Brit. and Amer. English. Mainly the thing to remember is that the first Americans did have British accents, but pilgrims and immigrants from different parts of Britain, so brought slightly different accents. All languages always change over time, but since their was an Atlantic ocean between the 2 countries, they changed in different ways. Also there were Native American influences here, as well as immigrants from other non-English speaking nations, who brought other words that American English "swallowed."

I love the study of dialects since I come from the South, northeast Tennessee, to be exact, so I heard both "southern coastal" and the "Appalachian" dialects mentioned. In fact, much of the slang is common to me, as in I might actually use it in conversation. I don't have the "accent" per se, but I know the dialect. Arizona is pretty bland, as it's newer as a state and never got the same type of influx of European immigrants, but the Spanish influence will change things in 150 years, 200 years, eventually perhaps creating a Spanglish language like Creole, which the site mentions is French/English. It won't be a joke language, it'll be far more important and you won't be anybody if you don't speak that hybrid language (like a form of bilingualism but the best words for both languages in one single language, no repeats).


I ask for his thoughts and I'll ask for all y'all's responses as well (dialectal variation intended.)