When You Dance You Remind Me Of Sylvia Plath

This blog has sunk to the level of an electronic clipboard. Please enjoy if interested this letter of rec i just wrote for one of my professors.

December 2008


The Faculty of the Slavic Department
Department of Slavic Languages and Literature
Northwestern University
1860 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208-2163


Dear Slavic Department Faculty,

This letter is intended to serve as a recommendation for Professor Seamas O’Drsicoll in support of his third year review. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to explain why I believe he makes such a valuable contribution to your faculty.

I first became acquainted with Professor O’Driscoll during the Spring Quarter of my freshman year. He, along with Susan McReynolds and Kate Baldwin, was one of three professors teaching Confronting Capitalism, the second half of the expanded freshman seminar offered through the Kaplan Humanities Scholars program. In addition to listening to the many lectures delivered by Professor O’Driscoll to the entire class, I was a member of the smaller discussion section that he led.

Professor O’Driscoll’s lectures were among the best I’ve heard at Northwestern. Faced with the challenge of presenting difficult and complex works and ideas to freshman, he performed exceedingly well. The texts we worked with, such as A. O. Hirschman’s The Passions and the Interests and Chernyshevsky’s What Is To Be Done, could easily have seemed confusing, boring, or pointless in the hands of a less able or enthusiastic teacher. Through his engaging lecture style and finely crafted supplementary materials, Professor O’Driscoll made even the driest texts interesting and relevant.

Lecture took place in the morning, which made for groggy and distracted students, so Professor O’Driscoll would open every class by teaching us a greeting in Gaelic (one of several languages he speaks fluently) and having us speak it back to him. It was a simple and entertaining activity, but I believe it was very helpful in keeping the class focused, engaged, and awake. Once his students were alert and attentive, Professor O’Driscoll proceeded to address his topic in a clear, accessible and informative manner, always willing to pause to answer a question or clarify a point, and always working to show us the real world relevance of what could often seem like very abstract ideas. Highly relevant quotes, clear diagrams, and images mined from the most obscure depths of the Internet were effectively used to support and expand the professor’s rhetorical arguments. Especially complex lectures were often accompanied by a handout with a clear outline and important quotations for easy reference.

While lecture offered Professor O’Driscoll a chance to demonstrate his excellent formal teaching skills and thorough, insightful scholarship, I feel that his best work was done in the more intimate discussion sections. Here he was able to engage with students one-on-one, not only clarifying but also expanding upon the points made in lecture, encouraging us to challenge one another’s conclusions and to find connections between the material and our own lives. Each section began with a clear discussion outline written on the chalkboard, but Professor O’Driscoll was always willing to alter his plans on the fly if the conversation moved in an interesting new direction. By constantly monitoring our grasp of and excitement about the material, Professor O’Driscoll was able to make sure that slower students were never left behind and more advanced students were never bored.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of my discussion section with Professor O’Driscoll was the personal touch he added to what could have been a stale, purely academic debate. He offered us stories and examples from his own life, both in academia and in the advertising field. For example, during our study of Marx, Professor O’Driscoll was able to make the difficult concept of commodity fethishism more accessible with an demonstration drawn from the world of advertising. He invited us to recall commercials we had seen for Coca-Cola and the ideas and feelings they conveyed. By examining the message of the advertisements and our own response to them, we were able to see how a can of Coke can be much more than a simple beverage. Later, when each member of the class was asked to reveal the product he or she most fetishized, Professor O’Driscoll did not exempt himself, sheepishly revealing his desire for a pair of outrageously expensive Italian loudspeakers. Thanks to human moments like this one, Professor O’Driscoll never intimidated the class with his obvious intelligence and energy. He certainly led the discussion, but as a first among equals rather than a stern and aloof intellectual dictator.

In addition to augmenting our conversation by revealing and discussing his own personality, Professor O’Driscoll showed a clear interest in the mind and personality of each individual student. After only a few classes he had learned enough about us that he was able to use examples he knew would be relevant to us, to encourage brief debates between specific individuals for the benefit of the class as a whole, and to divide us into equal and effective groups. One class period in particular leaps to mind: our task for the day was to parse Ben Jonson’s drama The Alchemist and examine the conflicting economic philosophies behind each character. Professor O’Driscoll divided us into four groups, three of which worked to interpret and explain a section of the play to the rest of the class. The fourth group was a bit more unorthodox, made up as it was out of theatre majors and other expressive people, but well suited to its task: performing a vital portion of the play for the rest of the class. I felt this arrangement was very effective. The actors were able to more effectively engage the material on an emotional and performative level, while the audience gained deeper insight into the characters and the ideas they represent. By knowing his students well and assigning tasks accordingly, Professor O’Driscoll was able to enhance the learning experience of everyone involved.

Professor O’Driscoll’s passionate and infectious enthusiasm for the course material is mirrored in his high level of dedication and competence outside of the classroom. Syllabi and other course documents were always made available online in a timely manner. Assignments were promptly and fairly graded, with ample and constructive commentary and criticism. While I never attended his office hours, I did speak with Professor O’Driscoll several times after class when a concept in class or a comment on a paper was unclear. He welcomed and encouraged these conferences and was always willing to listen to my questions and offer helpful and friendly advice.

Seamas O’Driscoll is a skilled scholar and teacher with an enthusiasm for learning and a willingness to use every available resource and technique to transmit this enthusiasm to his students. I personally feel lucky to have taken a course with him, and I plan to take more in the future. I give him my wholehearted support in this review.



Sincerely,



Maxwell Kuehn
Sophomore, WCAS