Time-saving formulas

Several semesters ago I made the switch from the tedious work of calculating grades by hand to the semi-tedious work of using a spreadsheet. As for online grading systems, I just wasn’t made for these times: I often assign very short pieces of writing as seems appropriate (playing it by ear, as my dad would say) and thus cannot devise a grading system in which every piece of work fits into some pre-established scheme of percentages. So I have no answer the eternal question “How many points is this worth?” Every piece of writing counts toward the percentage of the semester grade that goes to writing, with longer work and the best work counting for more.

The formula above will save me perhaps an hour of calculating grades for one class. D1 is the average of several very short pieces of in-class writing. E1, F1, G1, and H1 are three-page essays. I1 is the best of those three-page grades, counted as an extra page, as it were. These grades, added together, get divided by the total number of pages: /14. Multiply the result by six, add participation times two, the final exam times two, divide by ten, and there’s the semester grade.

Humanists: if you’re still doing grades by hand, you might want to look into creating a spreadsheet. It’s always good to learn new skills, and the savings in time can be considerable. The one caution I’d offer: proofread car fully! A single mistyped cell name = disaster.

May 4: In the comments, a much easier way to create a formula to do the work of the one above, courtesy of The Arthurian.

A related post, sort of
“MONEY MAKING FORMULAS”

[Yes, proofread car fully.]

Eponym of the day: hector

“Hector is a brave and dutiful character, but unfortunately his name is now sullied in the language.” His name is the eponym of the day, from A.Word.A.Day.

Marjorie Perloff on the “well-crafted” poem

Writing in the Boston Review, Marjorie Perloff inventories the qualities of the “well-crafted” poem:

1) irregular lines of free verse, with little or no emphasis on the construction of the line itself or on what the Russian Formalists called “the word as such”; 2) prose syntax with lots of prepositional and parenthetical phrases, laced with graphic imagery or even extravagant metaphor (the sign of “poeticity”); 3) the expression of a profound thought or small epiphany, usually based on a particular memory, designating the lyric speaker as a particularly sensitive person who really feels the pain, whether of our imperialist wars in the Middle East or of late capitalism or of some personal tragedy such as the death of a loved one.

Check. Check. And check. To my mind, such stuff gives poetry a bad name. There’s an awful lot of it around.

I don’t think it’s necessary though to embrace the aesthetic of appropriation that Perloff poses as an alternative to the poetry of the “I.” Even if it were necessary, there’s a world of difference between, say, the “uncreative writing” of Kenny Goldsmith and the work of a poet such as Susan Howe. Not all appropriation need be of equal interest. A sad irony of the “well-crafted” poem is that its maker appropriates the elements of hundreds (or thousands) of other poems, without a trace of self-consciousness.

Good poets though are always appropriating, and they know it: they know that the words they use are and aren’t their own. The “true voice of feeling” (to use a phrase Perloff gives to a hypothetical opponent) is always accompanied by other voices, of the living and the dead. And je, as Arthur Rimbaud wrote, est un autre. Bob Perelman makes this point in the poem “My One Voice”:

At the sound of my voice
I spoke and, egged on
By the discrepancy, wrote
The rest out as poetry.

From Primer (Berkeley: This Press, 1981).

Three related posts
National Poetry Month : Six “well-crafted” lines : Words I can live without (craft as a verb)

Blogger, a mess

[As seen on May 2, 2012.]

The “new look,” the new Blogger interface, which renders Blogger more or less useless on the iPad (among other problems), was to be imposed on all accounts in April. That hasn’t happened, nor has there been an update to the message seen above. Is the delay prompted by the problems users have identified? Is anyone home? Hello?

Google, please be advised that better communication would make it easier to believe (even if mistakenly) that you care about Blogger users.

Nancy is here

[Nancy, January 18, 1943.]

I loved Nancy in childhood, and I love Nancy now. The accuracy and economy of Ernie Bushmiller’s art and the genial simplemindedness of his humor make an irresistible combination. So I am happy that Fantagraphics at last has published Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943–1945. Coming later this year: 1946 to 1948.

I like the panel above for its demonstration of depth in a small space: a cartoon version of Gregg Toland’s deep focus technique. I like the variety of textures and objects: upholstery, baseboard, heels, printed matter, bowtie, two-tone vest, curtains, glass, cap, hair bow. And that radiant nail. I also like the unashamed delight that Nancy and Sluggo take in their pain-inducing prank. Mr. Gripe’s suffering though has an element of rough justice in it: several panels back, Nancy and Sluggo were looking a poster exhorting the reader to “PICK UP NAILS AND SAVE YOUR COUNTRY’S TIRES.” They saw a nail fall from the board in Gripe’s hand. They told Gripe that he should pick up that nail. He scoffed: “Shut up! — It won’t hurt anyone.” So Nancy and Sluggo took a short-cut to his house. Willya look at him jump! Hahahaha.

Justice, thy name is Nancy. And Sluggo.

A related post
No (a Nancy panel)

[People were always taking short-cuts back then, weren’t they? “Hey, I know a short-cut.” Yes, the nail looks more like a tack. Nancy is, after all, a comic strip.]

The three sons

[From The Book of Genesis, illustrated by Robert Crumb (New York: Norton, 2009). Click for a larger view.]

In the introduction to this volume, Robert Crumb describes his Genesis as “a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” And it is a straight illustration job, a brilliant one. But at least one joke has slipped in. Do you see what I see in the above panel?

A week of eponyms

Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day has a week’s worth of eponyms lined up. The Greeks lead, 2-0, with mentor and nestor.

Overheard

In a nearby restaurant:

“Are you kidding? I have an eight o’clock final.”

Well played, young scholar.

Related reading
All “overheard” posts (via Pinboard)

[For clarity: the student was just saying no, to something.]

As exams approach

[“Student Vera Bogach of Massachusetts College, studying for exams in a bubble bath.” Photograph by Yale Joel. May 1951. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

Best wishes to all givers and takers of final examinations.

Related reading
How to do horribly on a final exam
How to do well on a final examination

[Sisters Olga and Vera Bogach were friends with and models for the painter William James Jr., a grandson of William James. Vera married a painter named Joe Gropper. That’s all I know.]

On Duke Ellington’s birthday

[October 27, 1973.]

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899.

YouTube has some brief 1973 clips of Duke Ellington in Sweden. At the Duke Ellington Music Society, Sven Eriksson reports that this footage was shot for Finnish television (YLE) in the city of Umeå on October 27, 1973. The Westminster Abbey performance of the Third Sacred Concert, mentioned in the interview, took place on October 24.

I’d never before seen Ellington on film this late in his life. (He died on May 24, 1974.) His charm is on display in the airport scene, as he removes his hat to bow to the ladies. But Ellington here is impatient. To a reporter at the airport: “No, you listen. You talk too much; you don’t listen enough.” And to the reporter in the longer interview scene: “We don’t do tours. We do this fifty-two weeks a year.” (Don’t these people read the papers?)

The most revealing comments here concern what the reporter calls “the jazz scene” (Ellington hated the word jazz) and the business of music:

Jazz? Well, I mean, the word to me means freedom of expression. That’s what I think of it, that’s all. And if it is accepted as an art, it is the same as any other art. The popularity of it doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean anything, because when you get into popularity, then you’re talking about money and not music.

When you say “Well, young people,” that means that young people are dictating. They are the dictators or the dictatresses of the day as far as the arts is concerned, and this is not true. The young people are the people who are buying, because they are told to buy, and they cannot buy what is not pressed. And there’s a little man known as a sales manager who tells them how many million to press. And then they tell the little children, they say “Now you buy this million,” and they do it. It has no relationship to music, and it has nothing to do with taste.

Other posts for Duke Ellington’s birthday: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.

[For fanatics only: Russell Procope is visible behind Ellington at 0:14, Harry Carney at 0:22. I think that’s Mercer Ellington on the far left at 0:15. Ellington’s hat looks like the one he wore when recording This One’s for Blanton with Ray Brown in 1972. Who else could pull off wearing a hat like that? Thelonious Monk, I guess.]