Category Archives: pedagogy

Student Evals

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It’s that time again. Here’s what my writing students think of my classes:

“I think in class writings and conferences really helped me learn more.”

“Professor Wiseman was able to teach so much without it being boring. She really made learning fun and interesting.”

“She enjoys what she does. There’s a lot of coherence between everything we do in class.”

“This teacher makes everything so easy to understand and she’s always in a good mood. She has a great attitude and personality. Everything we did helped me learn.”

“Always there to help and replied quickly to emails when I had questions. One of my favorite teachers this semester.”

“She has a lot of great ideas and she knows how to work well with the class.”

“She is very smart and talented. She knew exactly how to challenge us.”

“She tells us exactly what she wants and answers all of our questions. I think she was a really awesome teacher. My favorite by far.”

“Professor Wiseman understands how many students feel about this class, and really worked with us as students. She also has a love for English, this being a good area for her to teach.”

“The teacher was organized and followed her syllabus very well.”

“She is very approachable and helpful one on one. Very engaging.”

“She is good with interacting with us, and she taught me how to write a good essay.”

“I became a much better writer. My writing skills improved immensely. She was very helpful and a wonderful teacher. She explained everything clearly and grading papers fairly. She was readily available and returned work pretty fast.”

“Very nice and easy to understand her teaching method. Very effective at teaching the material.”

“She was always on time and organized. All assignments/instructions were clear and understandable. All questions were answered and work was returned in a reasonable time.”

a little teaching love

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From late December 2011 through last week, I’ve been teaching a class locally in the community. It was a small group, 2-5 people per class, though one day I did have eight. Wow! I had my students fill out an evaluation after the class. Here are some of their comments:

Classes with Madeline have been so wonderful. Such a blessing.

What a treat it was!

Yeah!

It was my first time. It was a wonderful.

Very good. I’m new and she was good at explaining and demonstrating.

Challenging, but also relaxing. Thanks!

Nicely organized. Good pace. Very well done.

Wonderfully relaxing!

Yay! Thanks students! I was just doing this fun. And fun it was! Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you!

the young poets assess

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Finally, I’ve had a chance to go through my student evaluations for Poetry Writing, a class I taught earlier this year in the spring. Here are a few of the highlights, one has even deemed me a “poetess.” Who knew?

I truly have become a better writer and reader of poetry. This class taught me how to utilize line and meter with a variety of forms and much needed experience.

 

She is a brilliant poetess who knows her craft very well, and this shines through in the way that she teaches it. Her willingness to work with students was also admirable.

 

She is very helpful and knows how to make poetry make sense. One of the best teachers I have had my first year at college.

 

I learned how to better analyze poetry. I now take into account how it is written, what words were chosen and where the lines end.

 

Reading the poetry book by Sherman Alexie, his styles really influenced me to [be] more creative with imagery. I really liked reading poems from Native Guard as well. Reading them and then deciphering them as a class really helped me understand them better.

 

I loved the readings, the personal writing time, and the fact that there were a lot of papers to write! It was an active class!

recent news

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Since my last post, so much has happened. Thus, I present you a bulleted list.

  • On Valentine’s Day at 7 p.m I read at Crescent Moon‘s reading series “Poetry on the Moon” with Mary K. Stillwell, and several others who read afterward during the open mic. I had a wonderful time reading from My Imaginary and Ghost Girl, and from my two forthcoming collections Branding Girls, and Sprung forthcoming from San Francisco Bay Press. I had such a great time! I even read a few poems from my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher. I’ll be reading at “Poetry on the Moon” a little later this spring. More on that soon.
  • Earlier that day, I successfully defended the above mentioned dissertation. I am thrilled! It was a good conversation, with thought provoking questions and suggestions. I’m very much looking forward to my continued research on Matilda to see what other opportunities Matilda might inspire in my future writing.
  • Coming up in the very near future, I am reading tomorrow from my dissertation at No Limits, 9 a.m. March 5, 2011, in Kearney in the UNK Nebraskan Union (Ponderosa Rooms).
  • At the end of spring break, I will also be reading at Red River Graduate Student Conference at 3:15 on March 26 at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND. I’m very excited to see North Dakota. I had the opportunity to read at the Western Literature Association in October 2009 that was held in Spearfish, SD, which gave me a little bit of time to see beautiful South Dakota. Such lovely country! I cannot wait to see the landscape in and around Fargo, as well as some friends and family along the way in Iowa and Minnesota, including my two nephews and the new one on the way due this July. During the reading, I might even sneak in a poem or two from Branding Girls.
  • Speaking of Branding Girls, I’m thrilled to have my first course adoption! Yeah! Yeah! Carole Levin will be teaching Branding Girls in her history course on Saints, Witches, and Madwomen here at UNL in the pre-session this summer. When I took Carole’s class in the summer of 2009, we read such wonderful books and had such great discussions, including a day that focused entirely on advertising, branding, and the commodification of the body, which fits perfectly with Branding Girls. In conjunction with the course adoption, she’s invited me to read in her class and in town. More on that soon. I’m so thrilled!
  • The final, but certainly not last, thing I want to share is news on an anthology. My essay “Dear Diary: Violence, Confession, and Creative Writing Pedagogies” was accepted in 2009 by the editors of Dispatches from the Classroom: Graduate Student Essays on Creative Writing. The editors, Dave Yost, Joe Rein, and Chris Drew, now have a contract with Continuum Press, scheduled to publish the anthology soon. I am over the moon! My essay, originally written as individual papers that I delivered at AWP in 2009, NWSA in 2008, and Split this Rock in 2008, I combined, revised, and reworked them to eventually become one of my scholarly essays in my comprehensive exams for the PhD. I am so excited that all that hard work I did in writing the academic piece, now has a home, and soon, will be out there in the world.
work to see what other opportunities Matilda might inspire in my future writing

Sprung’s first blurb

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I’ve just received my first blurb from Grace Bauer for Sprung, forthcoming from San Fransisco Bay Press next year. Grace is an amazing poet and teacher. The first poetry workshop I took at UNL was with Grace. For her class, rather than read a dozen or so poetry collections, she asked the students to read current issues of poetry journals, such as The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Fence, and Poetry, and write responses to the journal’s aesthetic. In class we would workshop poems and discuss the journal. The issue of Poetry I chose happened to be an issue that focused on humor. The following class, Grace also brought in an essay that discussed the use of humor by poets such as Denise Duhamel. I remember being fascinated, in part because I hadn’t really considered poetry as something that was funny or could be funny. Up to that point, I’d only brought serious poems to be workshopped.

Grace is the author of several chapbooks and two books, Beholding Eye and Retreats and Recognitions. Her books are wonderful, surprising, and indeed, humorous. She was also the editor for Prairie Schooner‘s baby-boomer issue. Her introduction is a must read. She’s a hoot at poetry readings. At the first reading I attended of hers, she wore a lapel pin crafted out of an old dial to a dishwasher (I think). I’ve just ordered her edited collection, Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum.

Here’s Grace on Sprung:

The series of poems that comprise Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Sprung feature an unlikely antagonist. Alter ego? Animus? Evil twin? Master manipulator? Muse? Imaginary friend? Or foe? Wiseman is a smart woman, a gutsy poet who seduces the reader with possibilities in this delightfully disturbing collection.

Thanks, Grace.

News for a new semester

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I’m super excited because The Sow’s Ear Review and Illya’s Honey have accepted poems of mine for their forthcoming issue. I love it when my poems find homes.

Second, I received my contributor’s copy of the current issue of Eclipse, which includes a great piece by Judith Slater, also a member of the UNL community. My piece, “Hypotheses (or In the Lake of the Woods) is a poem I wrote in response to the Tim O’Brien novel, a book I taught in one of my composition and rhetoric classes. The poem also appears in my poetry collection Ghost Girl. In 2008, Tim O’Brien was the writer-in-residence here. I was lucky enough to take his master workshop. It was an unforgettable experience.

Third, my contributor’s copy of the anthology hell strung and crooked from Unhook Press has also just arrived. Yeah! It includes a great interview with Mark Doty. Speaking of the poet, I’ve read a few of his books, but my current favorite is his memoir Dog Years. It’s a wonderful book. One of the best memoirs I read last winter.

And finally, today is the first day of a new semester. I’m teaching a composition class and a poetry class. The latter is my favorite class to teach because it combines women’s studies, women’s literature, and creative writing into a class called English 253A: poetry writing: Women’s Poetry. Along with a few short essays, this term I’m teaching Anne Sexton’s Transformations, Louise Gluck’s Averno, Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia, Carole Oles’ Waking Stone, Denise Duhamel’s Kinky and Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux’s edited text The Poet’s Companion. It’s going to be an amazing class. I’m so excited!

students

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With the first week of classes done I want to thank all my new women’s poetry students and intro to lit students for starting off the semester wonderfully!

And while I’m at it, I want to thank my fantastic students in my women and poetry class I had last spring and my amazing students I had this summer in women and popular culture. Each day the latter group arrived ready to discuss and contribute insightful comments. My favorite day was an activity in which I asked them to work in groups to design the cover of a girl’s or women’s magazine that some how interrupted and challenged the majority of magazines aimed at those gendered female. Here’s a picture of their work on the whiteboard:

You can zoom in here. Some of my favorite features of their ‘zines included, “How to Dress Your Body,” “Girls Night In,” “Guide to Healthy Living: How to Love Your Body,” and “Sexuality Vs. Sexualization.” It’s classroom moments like these that remind me why I love teaching.