Catfishin'

I like catfishing. Lately, however, the closest I've gotten to a catfish has been Jen's awesome blackened catfish filets (bought at Albertson's and prepared at home--recipe below) or the dead fish that've come ashore at Burn Lake in Las Cruces, NM. On Saturday, Jen and I spent nearly three hours fishing Burn Lake with a nibble or two but no bites. There were plenty of fish out there--every minute or so one would make a splash and a fish even landed on my line after I had cast about ten yards beyond it--but after three hours I reeled in a plastic bag, dirt, and weeds. But no fish.

Back in California, I often fished at night for channel cat at Dixon Lake in Escondido and caught quite a few with stink bait, cut shad, and deli meat. Back then I never ate the fish I caught: I waited until Juanita served up her baked catfish with cornmeal. Should Jen and I ever land a catfish out here at Burn Lake or Caballo Lake, we probably won't eat it either. Which makes the whole catfishing enterprise sound pretty useless. Until I consider what I could be doing if I wasn't fishing: cleaning house, prepping for a conference, or grading papers.

I'll keep the reel and line ready.

Blackened Catfish
(from Lucy Zaunbrecher's Classic Cajun Culture & Cooking)
2 pounds catfish filets
1 stick butter or
1/4 cup oil
blackened catfish seasoning (below)

Heat a heavy, large skillet; melt butter or oil. Dredge filets through seasoning and coat well. Lay the filets in heated skillet and brown on both sides (Jen says 4 mins. on each side). Serve hot.

Catfish Seasoning
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder (optional)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

The Reality of Things

Class has been great so far this summer term. I think everyone has got something in mind for the documented argument and if they don't already have an idea of what they want to argue, nearly everyone has an idea of what they want to argue about. I'm really glad some people have decided to do something they can relate to...the yoga papers that Marcus and Shelby are writing, for example, will not just help fulfill the requirements of the class--they'll also connect to their possible majors and careers and the research will also be useful to them as they work toward their degrees.

Something I really like about our class is the ability for students to cut through the bullshit and talk honestly about their writing. Everyone seems to acknowledge the difficulty with procrastination (some have even called it an art), the word requirements, and finding sources. Bobby's reminder that the word requirement means that I'll get a lot more "it is" than I will "it's" in everyone's writing. I like knowing such things and I don't think anyone is "cheating"...I think it's pretty smart. Something we'll work on this term is cutting through unnecessary wordiness. It's one thing to not contract words to meet a word requirement...it's another thing to use twenty words to say the same thing you might be able to say with one or two.

Tomorrow is our library visit at the library and I'm currently grading research blogs from last week. It's really interesting reading about the very different writing backgrounds in the class and I hope the class (and I) can accommodate all these different backgrounds and help everyone become a better writer.

English 111 in the Summer

I began teaching English 111 last Thursday and so far I really like my class and the students. There's a really good mix of personalities, majors, and writing backgrounds represented in my class, and I think what I like best is that they have a sense of humor but seem to realize that there is some importance to understanding how to writing and how to argue effectively. I wonder sometimes if education seems more important to people when the economic climate seems uncertain--like it's some kind of additional motivation to get what you can out of your classes.

This week we're focusing on reading arguments and writing arguments. The last couple days my class have read various forms of argument and in different formats. Today we talked about visual rhetoric and they did a really good job dissecting a "Mac vs. PC" advertisement: I was really proud of how they zeroed in on the argument but also provided supporting details to support their claims about the ad's argument.

Tomorrow we're going to work with grammar (boo) but I'll try and sell it on its usefulness and contextualize it in such a way so they see how it can relate to their own writing. Students will also begin using blogger and will finish up their wiki profiles. So far this has been a great summer term and I'm looking forward to working with this group of students in the next few weeks.