Poignant question, good discussion in the comments.

Here's what I do. It's geared to my own beliefs and abilities while teaching. Other methods work for other people. 1/

#PublicPedagogy #WritingStudies #CdnWrds
These days, reading drafts and commenting on them is time- and energy-consuming for me. There's burnout and loss of ability to focus at play. Also too much time sitting with screens looking at texts. So, I have to start from the premise that it costs me something to agree. 2/
My sense of equity in teaching dictates that if I agree to do it for one student, I have to present it as an offer for the other students as well. Not everyone thinks that way, others reward the initiative displayed by the students who request it. That's not my way, I guess. 3/
So, if I agree to it for one student, I should offer it to all in the course. That won't be manageable if many of them take me up on it. My courses are very scaffolded; it's impossible for students to write a paper the day before the deadline. They have drafts ready early on. 4/
To say yes to the one student while also following my protocol will soon be unsustainable. If some students ask me to look at a full draft, if they email it to me with the request to read it and write them back with feedback (which some do), I say no. 5/
My course already has an alternative for them, built in, previously advertised to all students in the class. It's my office hours. Actually, I explicitly reward coming to my office for advice on both the major assignments. It's a low-stakes assignment in itself, with credit. 6/
Because it's an assignment, it has a description: come with questions, with a draft, or with nothing but confusion. If you have a draft, I can look at about 1.5 pages in detail and give you hands-on on-the-spot feedback. However much we fit into the 15min we have together. 7/
Some students come several times. Some come so often, we get through the whole draft in the end. That's fine. As long as enough time slots are available for everyone to have the option of booking them. I enjoy the process, it feels fair, and it saves me email anxiety. 8/
That sense of equity I mentioned, it’s also the reason why I will be keeping Zoom office hours after the pandemic. Coming to my physical office for office hours can be a hurdle to many students, in more ways than one. It can also be fun. If I offer both, they have the choice. 9/

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More from @Katja_Thieme

29 Apr
#EricKaufmann has some, what shall we call it--authoritarian?--idea for warning labels to be placed on some university courses. So students are foretold if they are to encounter material that anti-academic hacks indiscriminately call "CRT."
I, too, am eagerly awaiting the day when universities employ a syllabus inspektor to whom course materials must be submitted in time, and who will then put little red stamps beside course numbers where evidence of "CRT" subversiveness has been found.
Here is the top of the thread in which Kaufmann is responding. I put "CRT" in quotation marks because as soon as you're in a conversation where Chris Rufo is participating, you've got to distinguish his fever dream from the work of actual critical race scholars.
Read 9 tweets
28 Apr
I have yet to be convinced that "cancel culture" is a workable concept. In the famous cases of cancellation from within academia, the public perception of cancellation comes often from the fact that there were very loud screams in social media networks: "this is cancel culture!"
The perception of cancellation is frequently not borne out when you look into the details of the actual cases. There were complaints. Administrators handled those complaints--perhaps imperfectly. If they didn't handle them perfectly, there is evidence of pushback.
Some complaints are dismissed, as they should be. Others have significant evidence behind them: an investigation ensues, and there will be a form of discipline. We will have to allow that sometimes universities rightfully terminate faculty, given evidence of serious misconduct.
Read 6 tweets
27 Apr
Cenotaph: Mini-Play. For your reading pleasure.

K [sits quietly beside the old cenotaph, strokes her greying beard]

J [walks up confidently]: I hear this cenotaph is one of 70 that meet the criteria. It contains the cancellation, the intimidation, the mob letters, the petition!
K: Hello. Welcome. I have been here for a while. This cenotaph contains no such things. It has been thoroughly investigated. I have documented my own searches. Over there, in that box, are my notebooks. Have a look if you like. [returns to the posture of stroking her beard] Image
S [enters stage]: Ah! There have been more and more of these graves! Filled with dead bodies. Only efforts like the Harper's letter are slowing them down. It is not even about more graves and dead bodies, it is about the new culture of arbitrary mobs screaming for dead bodies! Image
Read 8 tweets
18 Apr
A few days ago, in this thread on #EricKaufmann's #AcademicFreedom report, I thought I would let other points slide in favour of this point: that the upper end of this 7-18% of NA faculty who he says support academic freedom violations is inflated by bad survey design. 1/
But my mind gets stuck on certain issues sometimes and this time it kept reminding me of what I didn't elaborate. So here goes: the lower end of this figure of 7-18% of NA faculty is inflated, too, by the choices Kaufmann made in processing his survey results. Let me explain. 2/
Here are two of the questions that led to the 7% lower edge of that range. You'll note that half the participants were given option A and the other half option B (or so I presume). 3/

Read 17 tweets
18 Apr
I suspect my Twitter fights could be much improved if this pedagogical insight was put more consistently into practice. :)
I would like to come to a place where those who keep espousing the principle of "only ever talk about the data, not about the people who handle it" change their tune, you know? Reputation matters. People who through past discussion have shown themselves more trustworthy. . .
. . . in their production of quantitative work and its interpretation tend to produce more trustworthy interpretations. It matters to know that and to talk about it.
Read 4 tweets
18 Apr
Dear everyone,

Just a warning. My "Oooops." is very powerful. You might want to take a few steps back to keep yourselves safe given this "Oooops." is virulently defending censorship."

Don't blame me if the silly string hits you.

Yours,
Woke Sauron
Missing an opening quotation mark in the above tweet, sorry.
Read 6 tweets

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