Have Field Log: Will Travel
by Jo Gibson
IT WASN’T UNTIL recently, as I neared the end of my twenty-year-plus
career as an editor and writer, that I embarked on my second,
part-time, edging-my-way-into-retirement career as an instructor
in the freshman composition program at Cleveland State University.
New to this business of being an adjunct faculty member, I
soon became aware of some of the unique properties of the
position, noting the tension inherent in the paradox of relishing
the autonomy that comes with the job (in spades!) and striving
to come to feel a part of a larger collegial community.
As with any new endeavor, there was a shakedown period. I
enjoyed the well-designed day of orientation spent in the
company of my fellow adjunct members, and the comprehensive
100-page Freshman English Faculty Handbook, which had not
just solid general information, but also “Tips for Teaching
Effectiveness,” “Tips on Assignments,” and a half-dozen essays
written by instructors for their fellow teachers on subjects
like peer review and portfolio exchanges. In addition to designing
the orientation session and handbook, Dr. Earl Anderson, chair
of the English Department, and Dr. Jeffrey Ford, director
of composition, had also arranged for office space dedicated
to adjuncts.
In the first few weeks, the value of our dedicated shared
office space became apparent. Those of us who shared the space
began to feel like colleagues. It was good to get to know
Virginia, and learn about her lute playing and interest in
Renaissance music, and Barbara and her love of science fiction
and Japanese animé. In my time in the corporate world as a
writer and project manager, I had come to know the value of
these casual, friendly relationships. Informal conversations
transmute into informal, but vitally important, problem-solving
sessions.
In just such a way, Susan, who had already had a successful
first career as an English teacher at an exclusive all-female
high school, gave me pedagogical hints. For instance, when
I mentioned in passing that some students had trouble reading
aloud from the text, she said, “Oh, I always defuse that situation!
Sometimes the students are just nervous, so I tell them ahead
of time it’s like sight-reading music. It’ll give some people
trouble at first.” With Kelley, I had some fine early-morning
têtes-à-tête, too. Before class, we’d share a favorite poem
or a segment of some good student essay we were grading. This
shared enjoyment of English literature seemed to propel each
of us once again into our classrooms, and we’d take our renewed
passion for the language with us.
Yet, in spite of all these positives–orientation, handbook,
office space, colleagues–I soon recognized that I was indeed
in a new world order. In the main, collegial relationships
were at a premium. Many of my fellow adjuncts were seldom
around. They checked in for office hours and conferences and
then rushed off. An energetic, involved, and enterprising
group of individuals, they were, as I learned, cobbling together
their living by working a combination of full-time and part-time
jobs. Their adjunct assignment was part of that mix. I came
to think of us as the Johnny and Joanie Appleseeds of the
higher education world. Adjunct faculty travel alone from
place to place, knapsacks holding textbooks, rules of grammar,
and graded student papers. Most of us take to this life-style;
the autonomy suits us.
Still, I felt ungrounded. I missed the easy give-and-take
of corporate life that I had gotten used to through the regularly
scheduled project meetings, team meetings, client interactions,
and suchlike. I therefore sought to devise a way to re-create
a version of that for myself. Because I like the act of informal
writing (I have my own chapbooks to dialogue with others and
a personal journal to dialogue with myself), it was an easy
move to create a separate journal dedicated to my adjunct-faculty
self.
I borrowed from methodology I had used in doing some qualitative
research. I began thinking of myself as an educational ethnographer,
and I created a field log to document my experiences. Thus,
I paid close attention to what was going on around me, in
the classic “naïve observer” mode, and because I carried my
field log (a yellow legal pad) with me at all times, I could
de-brief myself on-the-spot by reporting and then reflecting
on whatever was germane to my adjunct faculty work. Successes
in the classroom were noted; difficulties, too. In addition
to these musings, I use the field log to maintain a conversation
with rhetoricians, writers, and teachers of composition. I
make it a point to be reading something related to the field
at any given time, and I take notes on that reading in my
field log. In this manner, I can stay in conversation with
the likes of Peter Elbow (for process issues) and Robert Johnson
or Spencer Kagan (for active learning ideas). Thus, my field
log is my portable, personal learning community, and it’s
always there for me:
Does the class seem to be in the mid-semester doldrums?
It may help to re-read how I handled the same problem a year
ago; or I can refer to the notes I took from Teaching Within
the Rhythms of the Semester or a similar text for suggestions.
Am I beginning a unit that calls for close textual reading,
and do I see that the students need to be primed for it?
I can take a look at how I used Adler’s How To Read A Book
when I was teaching a group of younger students. A brief lecture
based on Adler, followed by some ungraded micro-essays based
on close textual reading would be a good intervention.
Do I just want to talk? Do I need to feel that kick
of inspiration, to help me reach higher as a teacher or a
writer? Well, that’s easy with the field log, for I can use
it to write to myself or to re-read and talk back to Parker
Palmer, Jane Tompkins, Natalie Goldberg, or bell hooks.
Do understand that I relish the autonomy of the open road.
Yet, if any adjunct faculty sometimes feels as I do and wants
more of the information exchange than is readily available,
this tool might work. Whether you elect to use laptop, dog-eared
yellow legal pad, or spiral-bound composition book, try making
yourself into something of an ethnographer: “Have Field Log,
Will Travel.”
