Sheridan’s (for some reason it feels more appropriate to use his first name) book continues to seem a thoughtful collection of prompts, ideas, and procedures that are saturated in theory, distinguished by results, and maintained by practicality.  I found the lines, “we have to reserve an equally prominent place in our syllabus for a serious effort at teaching and having student work on the formal academic literary paper,” especially relieving (p.157).  I found his method of giving only end-of-semester grades to be curious and thought-provoking.  For me, this is truly a quandary, a sort of mental battleground where the phalanxes of the progressive and standard push and shove to stalemate.  His use of the portfolio seems to be the only viable option in a response-laden and grade-absent assignment system, and I suspect the prospect of each paper supporting the other may indeed give students an even greater incentive than the individual grades themselves.  I think another problem with individual grades is there capacity to disenchant the student from the course.  This isn’t an exclusively English literature problem, but I think that when writing and literature are involved a poor grade can really influence a students’ participation in the class, both outside and in.  In my experience—which I admit comes more from my experience as a student than teacher—students that struggle with writing are especially vulnerable to surrender; throwing in the towel, saying, “this is stupid,” or “none of this actually matters,” is an easy way to reestablish their own self-worth and avoid the enormous task of learning to write.  Poor students—I feel like I should be politically correct here and say “students that receive poor marks”—are all fabulous mathematicians; if they get a good grade you can bet they’ll have figured out what grades they’ll need for the grade they want (or, in my case, what grade they need to pass).  If those grades seem impossible the student, who has already invested money into taking the course, is not likely to remain particularly engaged.  I think it is easy in our culture to harden our hearts against things we are not good at, things that lower our self-esteem: we’re taught that we need to have high self-esteem all the time, that we are all wonderful and equal in our wonderfulness—and in Academia I find a strange dichotomy between the traditional I / thou relationship of the student teacher, of the matriculated professional, and the mutant democratically neutered human that is bred in gradeschool.  Anyway, one thing that I’ll say about Sheridan’s portfolio method is that it demands a lot from the teacher.  Sheridan treats teaching writing / literature as his life’s calling, and I suspect he might agree, though in a more approachable language, that a teacher who is not so dedicated, who does not consider their job a thing of great personal and public importance to be something of a criminal.  The problem, I think, is not a lack of qualified, dedicated teachers, but a university’s willingness to pay them human salaries.  T.A.s are notoriously exploited individuals, and adjunct faculty is nothing more than companies hiring temps instead of employees so they don’t have to pay them benefits (which I get, I mean—fuck their health care).  The desire for me to speak on my own experience I this department is great, but it’ll have to wait until I get my degree and have the necessary credentials.  As it is, I wonder why there isn’t some massive movement in the composition world to have more God damn composition classes.  Writing across the curriculum sounds like a thing that was once a great idea and became compromised into Obamacare.  We have students that take one measly writing class and then must write essays in every class thereafter.  But do they practice writing in these classes?  Do they learn from their mistakes when their papers come back with grammar marks, the notation LEARN HOW TO USE A COMMA, and a grade?  Do professors who are tasked with writing across the curriculum know the pedagogy behind it—are they trained in teaching writing?  Do they give a shit about teaching writing?  I want someone to explain to me how writing across the curriculum is something more than the counterfeit currency of what almost every pedagogy we’ve covered wants to mint.