Kim De Vries

    How not to live slow by Kim De Vries Some years ago a new restaurant trend emerged, "slow food."  The idea was that everything would be prepared lovingly (and thus slowly) by hand and enjoyed by people taking time to really focus on and savor their food.  As someone who aspires to be a gourmand, this certainly appeals to me, but, … [Read more...] about Finding the Slow Path in a Fast World

  The Reform of Suburban Nation by Kim De Vries In 1998,  Sarah Susanka published her book Not So Big House, in which she argued that rather than "starter castles" what we really want in a home is shelter.   Two years later, Andrés Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk & Jeff Speck published Suburban Nation, a book exploring the origin … [Read more...] about McMansions and Home

  by Kim De Vries Recently, I've written about what we ought to focus on in early writing classes, and about creating a stronger community of writers and scholars.  Most of my discussion has been about what I might do in my own classroom or my own department, but I think one of the most useful strategies, though the most difficult, would be to expand Cal. … [Read more...] about Deconstructing Hierarchies in Higher Education

  by Kim De Vries As a relative newcomer (I've been teaching for about 10 years, but just started my first tenure track job), I appreciate the vote of confidence from fingerpointingatthemoon. As I said in my article, after wrestling with the choice every semester for years, I finally came to the view that I couldn't just teach my students to walk the academic … [Read more...] about Co-opting the Teaching Machine

by Kim De Vries Most writing teachers claim that they want to empower students; I say it myself and I believe it to be true. But you'd never guess that if you were a student in a college writing class. No matter how much we claim to be "de-centering authority" or encouraging students to "own their writing" or "find their true voices," at the … [Read more...] about Rant from an English Teacher