runonsentence

It sounds to me like most of this could either be inferred or put onto a CV. I personally wouldn't waste space on it in the SoP and save space for talking about my research.

To the OP: I'd let the letter stand as is, and if anything, solicit another letter to augment your application. I had something somewhat similar happen, and it didn't seem to really hurt my admissions chances. My mentors told me that committees often expect to see a dud or two mixed into packets and know that sometimes things fall through with letters and that it doesn't reflect poorly on the candidate. If your other letters look good, you'll probably be fine. To the forum: Most of my letter writers asked me to look at my letters after they'd written them, and give them feedback/corrections. This seems to be normal with other friends of mine who've gone through the application process, as well. I don't see anything wrong with this, unless I'm missing something here that makes this case unique? My understanding of the LoR waiver is that applicants waive their right to review the letter—that is, I've never equated "right to review" with "I promise not to look at my letters, even if they're offered." My understanding is that applicants simply relinquish the right to read all LoRs, with or without permission (and instead can only view letters the writer decides to make available).

For those struggling to grade more quickly: Audio feedback on essays. For me, it's all about the audio feedback. Minimal marginalia, then talk about what you're seeing overall. The 5 minutes I spend recording an audio track is still faster than trying to compose an end comment, for me.

Don't feel compelled to "explain" you gap years; not only is it common, but it's often seen as a strength (applicants who spend time away from school are often more sure they want to be in school, more mature, more sure of what they study...).

Yes, agreed with both of these! I sometimes let students start off by responding quickly to the reading (letting them get their "I didn't like it" responses out of their system) and then tell them that it's time to move on to analyzing, or to putting it in conversation with other texts we've read. Depending on what level you're teaching (freshmen have much more trouble with this than sophomores and juniors, for instance) this can sometimes take some work. I like to ask students to respond to one idea in the reading that I call their attention to, or ask them to report back on one or two main ideas/take-aways they got from the reading, on Blackboard and have it due before the start of class. It can be really helpful to know what they already do/don't understand, and where they're coming from, when planning discussion out.

I've always heard to submit one's strongest writing, period, though others have convincing arguments for considering topic above.

Haraway's Companion Species Manifesto is also very good, and helps her to further disrupt binaries in human/machine. THE text to read by Hayles would be How We Became Posthuman, if it's not on your list already. I've also read excerpts from My Mother Was a Computer. Also, if you get multimodal about this, Hayles has a lot of recorded lectures up online, and she's a lovely speaker. Worth checking out. I agree with truckbasket about some foundational texts. Lyotard's "Defining the Postmodern" might also be useful in this respect, as would some Marxist readings—some I've read in the context of a women's studies seminar on Feminst Foundations include Fredrich Engels "Origins of the Family" (this connects interestingly to Haraway's cyborg manifesto—ideas of kinship) and Raymond Williams "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory." Post-marxist, there's the classic "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" by Althusser.

Powerful photo essay from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-7-weeks-in/100183/

I'm interested in the fact that the OP seems to be a grad school applicant. Why ask this before entering grad school? If you're preparing applications and wondering if this field/course of study is right for you, grad school may not be the best choice right now. There may be other ways that you can pursue your interests in writing that don't involve investing money, time, and your heart in a graduate degree. (It will also make it much more difficult to get in, in the first place.) Now, interests evolve and change, and there are plenty that enter grad school and then discover that their field or course of study isn't for them. This does happen. But if you're applying to grad programs while feeling unsure about your subject area (and looking for potential ways out down the road), a graduate degree may not be what you need to pursue right now.

This was my experience (I attended a school that was <1400 undergrads). I've heard that an insane number of students in grad school come from SLACs—of course I can't remember the numbers, or where I heard this—but the percentage is disproportionate to the percentage of the national undergrad population that is enrolled in SLACs. It makes sense to me, given what these schools can offer.

Glad to hear from you. I hope that medication and/or the treatment program end up working out for you, and glad you were able to get your course load reduced in the meantime.

Yep, it really is. Every word seems precious when you're so close. That's why I advocate for a merciless hack, with the opportunity to add some back in. It's kind of liberating. Good luck!

I would say only if you are pretty certain (or know) that they are good. If you provide extraneous information and it's not strong extraneous information, it may not help so much.

Three double-spaced pages (about 1.5 single-spaced pages) is about the ideal length. Even if the school doesn't have a state length requirement/maximum, committees are expecting that much material by virtue of the genre's conventions. So can you technically go longer than this? Sure...but it's best to get as succinct as possible. As another poster mentioned, committees are reading hundreds and hundreds of these, and providing extra reading material isn't the best way to make a friend in this situation. I'd actually suggest you approach it this way, if you're having trouble letting go of the last 200 extra words: for fun/practice, cut your current SoP in half. Make really tough decisions about what needs to be there. Let that now halfed version sit for a day or two, and then (with a fresh pair of eyes) compare it to your original SoP. I'll bet you'll be surprised at how strongly you can still communicate your profile in such a short space. Then, you can add back in anything that seems essential from the longer version. I know this seems like a roundabout way of doing it, but I recommend this strategy because it really helps you to realize what is truly an essential detail that is working to communicate a picture of you and your scholarly identity, and what's fluff.

If they're asking for 10-15, or 15-20, I can say with strong certainty they're expecting one sample. Good luck trimming!

To hedge my last post a bit, I mean, the 5 page piece might not be terrible as a second paper, but my gut still says that it isn't doing the work of the writing sample (showing your capacity for sustained argument). But to your most recent questions: I think it's safe to assume that one writing sample is expected if a number isn't specified. Are your programs specifying the number of pages they're looking for? (Most of mine for English last year asked for 15-20 pages.) Accessibility: I personally wouldn't worry about an esoteric topic. In fact, it seems like it would be an advantage to submit on this topic, since it's related to your eventual course of study and you can demonstrate your chops. But in any case, your goals are to demonstrate that you write well, to show off your skills at analysis, and to show off your ability to create a sustained argument. As long as the paper does these things well, I wouldn't worry about it being on a well-known topic.

Sent you a PM.

Take Donald Asher with a grain of salt. I think he greatly overemphasizes the importance of narratives and "sticking out with a unique story" in his book.

Yes. They want to see evidence that you can make a sustained analysis such as the kind you'd make in grad school (i.e., most seminar papers are 10-15 pages min.) in your writing sample.

I also opened with my interests and future goals, and I think it's a good approach because it can help make those sections the focal point of the document, with your background and origin story etc. serving as support.

Not sure, I've only ever claimed books. My Dad does my taxes for me (ah, the benefits of having an accountant in the family), but I believe that educational deductions max out somewhere much lower than an iPad anyway.

@Two Espressos: yes, Slavoj Žižek spoke to those occupying NYC two or three weeks ago, there are lots of videos and transcripts up online. Judith Butler also spoke briefly earlier this week (videos are only about 3min long of that talk).

Learning to facilitate discussion well is really, really hard. I finally feel like I'm starting to get better at it myself after three years of teaching, but I still have days when I walk out of the classroom thinking, "Geez, I'm such a loser." Anyway, FWIW, some suggestions for planning discussions: one is to try to plan so that you have a short (emphasis on SHORT) list of very, very important take aways that must be covered in some way during the discussion. One, two, maybe three main ideas that you absolutely must either pull out of student responses (and then emphasize and elaborate on) or will lecture on if discussion isn't going the way it should. I like this approach personally because it helps me break up the linearity of trying to script one path to the takeaway points. It also helps me feel like we accomplished something; and if the students find other points of interest to talk about, then that's icing on the cake. My second suggestion is, I suppose, a reiteration from up above: get students thinking in the direction of your main idea by assigning some kind of directed response for homework, or by asking them to freewrite or jot down notes in response to a question designed to get them thinking in the direction of one of your take-aways. I always feel like I'm on surer footing with this kind of start.

There are some who would tell you that rank matters for some adcom members and would encourage you to look for professors higher up in rank than a lecturer, yes. It's not a hard-and-fast no-no, though, it might depend on the circumstances. For instance, one of the directors of the comp program for my MA (which was in lit) is a full-time faculty member but of the "field service" rank (meaning she is not tenured but rather on a long-term renewable contract). My DGS tries to persuade most people not to ask her for a recommendation because of her rank, though he didn't do so for me because (a) I was applying to rhet/comp PhD programs and she was therefore in a position to speak to my preparedness for the field, unlike many other potential recommenders I had from my lit degree, and ( and because I had worked closely with both her and the other director as the comp program graduate assistant.