by Jenae Cohn | Jul 18, 2013 | Literature, Personal
I’m having trouble turning off noise today. It’s all kinds of noise: cell phone noise, social media noise, inside brain noise. There’s something poetic about being consumed in this “white noise” considering I am in the postmodern phase of my prelim reading. I think my...
by Jenae Cohn | Jul 9, 2013 | Literature, Personal, Professionalization
I’ve been sent to an administrator’s office. The hallway is long, sterile, inevitably linoleum. I’m ushered into a room with taupe walls and stock art. A secretary barely notices me. Then, it’s time to talk to the Man in Charge. “There’s been something of… a mix-up in...
by Jenae Cohn | Mar 20, 2013 | Pedagogy, Personal, Professionalization
Las Vegas casinos, with their long hallways, patterned carpets, and mirrored walls, are designed to disorient. Last week, I stayed at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, NV attending the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and found myself moving in...
by Jenae Cohn | Feb 20, 2013 | Personal
Every six months, I go through this cycle where I wonder if I’m a sham. I’ve identified myself as a “writer” for most of my (young) adult life, but I frequently find myself in a self-loathing moment where I wonder, “If I don’t...
by Jenae Cohn | Oct 6, 2012 | Pedagogy, Personal
She had the “OK, I get it” gaze. One of my students – I’ll call her “Abby” – sat in the back of the classroom and she just had that look: the set jaw, the arms crossed, the eyes just a little glazed. She got it. She got this...
by Jenae Cohn | Sep 11, 2012 | Personal, Uncategorized
In elementary school, I used to create binders for each class I took. I slipped hand-drawn covers into the plastic pockets at the front of each: “MATH!!” swirled in purple glitter or “HISTORY!!” emblazoned with heart stickers and rainbows. The...