The Mittelstaedt Monitor

Christmas 2024

December's now here, and Jean at last said,

"Let's get this newsletter updatèd..."

Ted and Jean, 30th anniversary, August 7, 2023

Working hard...or hardly working...

Ted has been at his new job for a little over a year now: Director of Information Technology with CODA, Inc., a non-profit substance use treatment program. He oversees IT operations at the main office and at the various treatment and residential facilities around Oregon. His work still involves hands-on, but he is doing more with budgets and purchasing, equipment deployment, and personnel management. And he's actually taking days off now.  😊

I teach students about writing at Chemeketa Community College and at Linn-Benton Community College. In January, I will be teaching at Warner Pacific University as well. During Fall term, which just ended, I taught three writing classes, an English class, and an online brain-based learning class. I'm teaching writing and information literacy during Winter term, which begins in January. I also taught driver education and was the education specialist for a train-the-trainer session with ODE which trains bus driver trainers.  I continue on Chemeketa’s Faculty Senate, where I maintain their Web site, among other duties.   

The CORE Train the Trainer event in July

Hexagonal thinking discussion in Writing 121Z

Visual arguments using print ads in Writing 115

Mittelstaedts: The Next Generation

Ian and Ambrose headed to Beetlejuice

Ian turned 26 this summer and works at Vic's Auto Center in Lake Oswego as an automotive technician. He's working toward an apprenticeship with Tri-Met. His partner Ambrose will be starting a new job with Centria Health. They live in an apartment close by with their two cats Morpheus and Freyja, so he is able to stop in occasionally for a hot dinner or to let Ruby out when we are out of town. They are both TKs (Theater Kids), so they enjoy going to local theater whenever the can. These pictures are from when they attended Beetlejuice earlier this year.    

Ian and Ambrose at Beetlejuice at the Keller Auditorium

Dorothy turned 22 this fall, just before beginning her senior (but not last!) year at Seattle University. A mechanical engineering major, she's been taking math, physics, and engineering classes. Her off-campus apartment is much larger, plus she has a view. She enjoys finding deals on groceries and trying new Asian recipes in her own kitchen. She loves life in Seattle and enjoys exploring the area around campus when not studying. Her favorite place to visit is Twice Sold Tales, a bookstore with cats, and she regularly checks in with the dogs at Cal Anderson Park. She joined Rover.com this summer and has been busy walking dogs and house- and pet-sitting. She's home for a bit but will return to Seattle before Christmas for a house-sitting gig. 

Dorothy and Amura

Dorothy and Foxy

Ruby is 17 now and is slowing down more, but you wouldn’t know it when she's out on the beach at Seaside. She gave us a couple of scares this year where we ended up at Dove Lewis (they are amazing!), but she bounces back quickly and is not above looking thoroughly starving whenever people food appears. She sleeps more these days but still enjoys patrolling the local schoolyard to make sure it's kept free of food bits so that the little children and their parents don't have to worry.  😋

She's perfectly fine in this picture--just enjoying the nice cool grass. 

Life, the Universe, and Mittelstaedts

Our personal lives are not quite as busy as our professional lives, but we still make time for fun. We celebrated our 31st anniversary in August. I still sing with the Chancel Choir at Westminster Presbyterian, although sometimes my teaching schedule necessitates a hiatus. I ride my bike when I can. Ted runs and this year will captain a Hood to Coast team--which works out great, as we already have a place in Seaside to stay.  :-)  We also enjoy walking through our very walkable neighborhood and watching whichever streaming program we have time for. We're looking forward to Series 5 of All Creatures Great and Small in January. 

The different moods of Tillamook Head in Seaside

And to all a good night...

                
Peace and love to all of our family and friends in 2025! 

Ted and I got this Nativity when we moved into our house in 1996

Three moods of the same tree display at Winter Gleam at Oaks Park

One of my favorite lessons: Definitions in writing

 I've done this lesson for a number of years with Writing 115 (Introduction to Composition) and 121 (Composition 1). The lesson emphasizes the importance of defining terms for a reader in a college essay. But it also illustrates how definitions can be tricky--and how they can be used for good or for ill.

Here is the basic outline for the definitions in writing lesson. It's divided up over two class sessions, and each segment takes about 30-45 minutes. I've also done it in one class session.

I've indicated the texts I use, which could easily be substituted. I've also indicated texts I use in Writing 115 and Writing 121.  

Definitions in writing

1. In your notebook, write down one of these words and what you think it means:  need or neglect. (We discuss these terms, and I point out that definitions are really helped by concrete examples. I use the examples, “I need water/food/clothing/shelter/a red Miata” and “I forgot to feed my dog this morning/neglect.”)

2. Class: Watch this video about how and why to create definitions. 

3. With your workshop team, define one of the following terms. Use a concrete example to illustrate your definition. You can do this with words, pictures, colors, fonts, layout, or something else. (Students sometimes do this on paper and sometimes with tech, like a Google Doc.)
   

• Justice

• Ignorance

• Education

• Hatred

• Progress

• Discrimination
  

4. Look at another team’s (page or paper) and discuss their definition and example. What do you think of it? Leave the team one comment from your team. (This could be done on paper or with tech. This can also be done as a gallery walk with a “docent” from each team.)

5. Look at John Gast’s painting, “American Progress.”  What do you notice (details)?  What is the message of this painting? (We discuss the details and what the students think is the message. I sometimes write these on a whiteboard.)

6. Read “High on Progress” by Derrick Jensen for Writing 121 or “You say Latino” and “You say Latinx” by Terry Blas for Writing 115. (I usually start reading during class, sometimes on a document camera to annotate, and ask them to finish reading at home. You could substitute any text which is based on an extended definition.) 

7. Read Oregon Writes “Definition” (Part 4). (This reading reiterates and reinforces what was covered about definitions. I don’t usually give a quiz, but I do reference it on Day 2. You could substitute any reading on definitions.)

Directions for Day 2

8. Watch this clip from Babylon 5 episode, “Voices of Authority.” What point does it make about definitions? (While this episode is from 1995, it could easily have been written in more recent years.)

9. What does the Oregon Writes reading say about definitions? (If students don’t know, which they may not because they haven’t read it, we look it up together. You could give some sort of a reading quiz or a short writing prompt–a one-minute paper, for example.)

10. Writing 121: With your workshop team, answer the following questions. (These could be done using paper or using tech. You could add other questions if you like. The teams could debrief as well.) 

1. What is the rhetorical situation of “High on Progress”?

• Creator/writer

• Message

• Audience

• Purpose

• Context

2. What do you think of the message of “High on Progress”? Why?

11. Writing 115: With your workshop team, answer the following questions.

1. Why does Blas define the terms Latino, Hispanic, Latinx, and Latine?

2. What is Blas’s point or message? Do you buy it? Why?

3. What’s the big deal about definitions anyway? Why do they matter?

Using hexagonal thinking discussion with my Writing 121 class

 

I tried something new to me this term: a hexagonal thinking discussion as described by Betsy Potash of Spark Creativity. The idea behind it is to give students a number of hexagon cards on which are written titles, themes, characters, ideas, quotations (the possibilities are myriad). The hexagonal thinking happens when students make connections among the cards. They create a honeycomb-web of connected cards that they have discussed, arranged, rearranged, and re-rearranged. They can also add arrows and labels to show the connections or to show a particular direction,

I had wanted to try a hexagonal thinking discussion for quite some time but hadn’t been able to find the right opportunity. I decided to make it happen this term and happen it did!  

In my Writing 121 class, I hold periodic class discussions about the texts we’ve read and the commonalities they share. Then I have the students write discussion questions, which they discuss with their small-group workshop teams, and we decide as a class which questions to discuss. I figured that a hexagonal thinking discussion would be perfect for this. 

Because I wanted this discussion to encompass all the texts and themes we had discussed up to that point in the term. I created a list of those titles and themes. I then gave each team an instruction sheet and a set of hexagon cards. I demonstrated the discussion with a quick set of my own creation based on Lord of the Rings characters and ideas. (I use “Frodo” as an example all the time, so the students are accustomed to it.) Then I asked the teams to write the titles and themes on their set of hexagon cards to prepare for the discussion. (Betsy Potash describes several ways that words for the hexagons can be generated and the sets of cards made. This is just the method I chose.) 

The discussion itself took place during the next class session. I quickly did the demo again, particularly since there were several students who had been absent from the previous class session. Then I gave each team their sets of hexagons and explained how the discussion would run. They were to lay out their cards and work together to find the connections. They could move the cards as many times as they needed as long as they were discussing where the cards should be connected. After that, I let them talk…and enjoyed the experience as the engagement and energy buzzed. The discussion was rich, robust, and respectful, and it was clear that each team was immersed in the interactions with their teammates. 

The next step was to have each team visit the other teams’ hexagonal arrangements. One person stayed with their team’s shape while their teammates visited the others. This person explained the thinking to the visitors, much like a museum docent does. These discussions were equally rich and engaged. Each team also wrote down something that they noticed from the other shapes. Here are some samples: 

"I noticed that their honeycomb was very long and spread out but the connections were very strong. " 

"This team first based it on discrimination and then moved on from there." 

After everyone was done, the class debriefed. I asked them what they noticed. They were most struck by how different each team’s shape was and the different ways of thinking each shape demonstrated. They very much enjoyed doing this activity. They liked how it got them out of their seats and talking to each other. I hope we’ll be able to do it again. If I don’t do it with this class, I definitely plan to add it to my teacher toolbox for future classes.