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"You're frustrated. If you want help, I'm here. If you just need to vent… leave a message."

Chase says this to House in S4E3: 97 Seconds, and, well, he really holds up to it for a while, I think!

For example, in S4E12: Don't Ever Change, Chase explains that he can't convince the patient, Roz, to undergo exploratory surgery before sunset, as House had wanted. The interaction goes:

ROBERT CHASE. I had a Rabbi call. She's adamant.

GREGORY HOUSE. She's not a masochist. She's suicidal. Nice job, Chase.

ROBERT CHASE. Yeah. I should have had twin Rabbis call. Can I go now?

Chase starts walking out.

GREGORY HOUSE. We need you.

Chase pauses.

GREGORY HOUSE. So, instead of a few days, we now have a few hours to figure this out. Nice work, Chase.

ROBERT CHASE. Why do you need me?

GREGORY HOUSE. Saying, "nice work, Chase" when you're not here is pointless.

Chase smiles and continues walking out.

GREGORY HOUSE. Seriously, we need you.

Chase leaves.

(I recorded this scene, and the others I'm going to reference, but I'm only able to upload one video per post. Does anybody know any way to circumvent this? It feels as though I might be misleading when I choose what actions/expressions I choose to write out, but it also feels like leaving out important context when I don't add them in.)

When Chase thinks House legitimately wants his input and assistance, he waits, but as soon as he finds out House is simply aiming his frustrations at him, he walks out, demonstrating how Chase is now willing to set boundaries with House. Of course, he does come back a few moments later with a solution to House's problem, but he doesn't stick around to be belittled for no reason.

That's a stark contrast to how Chase interacts with House earlier in the series. Take S1E19: Kids. After House discovers that Chase ratted him out to Vogler, he punishes him by making him research every possible cause of neck pain, an endless errand.

GREGORY HOUSE. What letter are you up to?

ROBERT CHASE. A.

GREGORY HOUSE. Torture combing through all that stuff, ain't it? Real dull. Awful.

ROBERT CHASE. It's no problem.

GREGORY HOUSE. Well, thank goodness. A lot of people would resent having to do this.

Instead of refusing to partake in an obviously pointless assignment, Chase simply bows his head and does it, completely willing to endure House's treatment.

Sure, House is Chase's boss, but we know that he doesn't actually want or respect mindless obedience from his employees. In S4E11: Frozen, House says as much directly to his new team. He tells them, "Do not play games with me. Number one, you're going to lose, you're just not ready. Number two, the game was to force you to stop playing games. I need you to stand up to me. Challenge me. I need you to stop worrying about getting fired." House doesn't want people who shut up and take whatever he dishes out, he wants them to be willing to argue, fight, and callenge him... something Chase just didn't do. By Season 4, though, he's learned the difference between helping House and enabling him. He'll stay if House actually needs him, but if House just wants someone to kick around... he can leave a message.

What's ESPECIALLY interesting to me is that, when Cameron and Chase's relationship takes a tumultuous turn after Dibala, he seems to backslide. In S6E8: Teamwork, we see the boundary he set begin to blur:

GREGORY HOUSE. I owe you an apology. I was wr-rr-r... I was wrr-r-rr...

ROBERT CHASE. What were you wrong about?

GREGORY HOUSE. You spent weeks elaborately concealing the fact that you... crashed daddy's car. And then you just confessed. Seemed idiotic. Certain to end in disaster. Instead you're riding off into the sunset together. Any theories on why?

ROBERT CHASE. I assume you've already dismissed the "she loves me" theory?

GREGORY HOUSE. Well, it's possible. It would require the presupposition that everything she's done for the last six years has been completely inconsistent with her character, but yeah, it's possible.

ROBERT CHASE. And as we've already established, it's also possible that you're wrong.

GREGORY HOUSE. Or there's another explanation. Since you don't have one, I’m gonna keep looking for you.

Chase doesn't act like he might've back in Season 1--yieldingly putting accepting House's accusations entirely--but he doesn't walk away either as he suggested he'd do in Season 4.

What's important here is that House isn't actually trying to help Chase. Throughout the episode, his interest in Cameron and Chase's relationship appears to be motivated less by concern for Chase and more by his own desire to keep them both at PPTH. House does not want to lose two members of his team, and he seems determined to prevent that outcome, evidenced by his saying "four for four" when Cameron walks into his office, implying that he sees her return as another success in keeping the team together. Earlier in the episode, when he tells Chase, "Cameron thinks you're my personal sock puppet. If you don't stay, it's gonna be hard to prove you're not," he's pushing on an insecurity because he wants Chase to make the choice that benefits him.

A Season 4 or 5 Chase might have recognized that House's comments were less about him and more about House getting what he wants, and he might have disengaged. Yet, here, Chase challenges him and allows the conversation to continue, gives House room to continue probing at his insecurities.

The real tragic part about this is that Chase's initial growth in Season 4 and his regression in Teamwork are driven by the same desire: to not be defined by House. Chase walks away in Season 4 because, guess what, House's opinions don't matter as much to him, he doesn't have to do whatever House wants! But in Teamwork, that same need for independence becomes his flaw. House telling Chase that Cameron sees him as "House's personal sock puppet" threatens the distance Chase has been building. He doesn't want to be seen as someone who simply follows House, so when House suggests that leaving PPTH would only confirm Cameron's suspicions, Chase engages instead of walking away.

And so, the fact that Chase is left taking up House's mantle in the finale is bittersweet to me, not triumphant. Chase wanted to distance himself from House, yet he ends up unable to escape his shadow.

#house md #robert chase #this feels very incoherent but i just had thoughts i wanted to blurt out as quick as possible

Field Notes from 25 years of Teaching Writing

Think like a reader, writer, and teacher.

Fifty years ago this September, I stepped into a high school English class and attempted to teach writing. I am going to tell you a secret that I wish someone had told me 50 years ago when I was so afraid of making a mistake that I carried a pocket dictionary every time I walked into a classroom. Here is the secret: You already know more than you think you know. So, take a deep breath, and concentrate on three main things: You as a reader, you as a writer, and you as a teacher.

Be a reader.

Start with yourself. Think about what you value in writing, any writing. Before you are a professional, you are a reader. Write for about three minutes about what is important to you as a reader. If you are with others, discuss with a few people, and then share with a larger group. You have just defined some writing goals for your students. You will need to have general writing goals and then particular writing goals for the class you are teaching and for the assignment you are giving. Goals for a first-year class can be more general than goals for a second or third year class, which is going to reflect readings and protocols in your discipline. Your goals for your first assignment and your second or third papers, also, should be different because you want to increase the difficulty or complexity of your assignments.

None of these goals matter unless you communicate them. Your students are not on the psychic hotline with you. It is unlikely they will magically sense what you consider important unless you communicate with them. When you convey this information—whether through speaking or writing—and the best approach is through speaking and writing, you are modeling good communication skills. Writing is communication between one mind and another. Writing is the conduit, which makes the ideas of one mind transparent to another mind. Whether what is in one of those minds is worth communicating or not is something, we will have to consider.

Be a reader is important when you are setting your goals, and it is important when you read your students’ papers as a reader. When I do not understand what a student has written. I write, “I don’t understand.” “I’ve lost the thread of the argument.” Or, “Do you have evidence to back up this point?” or “What is the point?” I always respond to papers as a reader. I also respond as a writer—“You might try so and so,” and as a teacher “Remember, we discussed xyz in class.” Nevertheless, responding as a reader comes first. Transparency and clarity in writing are two of my biggest goals. My college acting teacher used to say, “If you are going to make a mistake, make it big enough for me to see it.” How can I begin to help a student if I do know what the student understands?

Be a writer.

You know you need to communicate your writing expectations, yes, but you also need to be aware of yourself as a writer—to think about your own process. In order to teach writing, you need to think about how youwrite. How you revise. How you move from an idea to publication. How might that process vary from project to project? Think about your own writing process, and if you are with others, share your thoughts with them. What did you learn about yourself or the process of others? When you think about your process, you are really thinking about how you manageyourself as a writer.

How do you help your students have a process? You can talk to your students about your own process—how you manage yourself as a writer. How you break down your process. You can be honest, and admit that writing is messy and hard. Thank about what resources you have. Consider what resources your students have. Do you direct them to the Writing Center to the Library, to other support services?

Teaching your students to manage themselves, as writers, is one of the most important things you can do in helping them become better writers. Not always, but frequently, the paper your students hand you is a first draft—or not even that—what I call a discovery or exploratory draft. They are thinking, “What do I know about this subject?” Rather than thinking, “How do I communicate what I know to another person?” Consider how much time you give your students to write. Is it enough? Do you budget a week for every 5-7 pages you assign? When I teach a writing course, my students write three drafts of every paper. Along the way, they receive feedback from their peers, peer writing tutors, and from me—a process that spans several weeks. This has worked beautifully, but it may not be realistic for you in your course. So, I invented the 30-minute writing process, which I will unveil shortly.

Be a teacher.

Do you remember the old question, “What are the three most important things in real estate?” The answer, of course, is “Location. Location. Location.” Your location is your classroom, or your office or your desk. Whatever you do, face to face conveys importance. So, use the classroom, or your office to convey your expectations, to share writing management, to discuss the assignment. To say what it is your students need toknow to complete the assignment. Here is the 30-minute writing process: When I give out paper topics, I spend 15 minutes in class discussing the assignment. I might have three or four possible prompts. I discuss each one, discuss how a student might approach each one, and discuss what the student needs to know to complete each one. Then I ask students to eliminate one right then, to draw a big X through that topic. I ask them to spend another 15 minutes of their own time that day or the next day looking at and thinking about the assignment, and choosing one. Even if they never look at that assignment again until the night before the paper is due, it has been sloshing around in their brains for a bit, and they will write a better paper.

You have all heard by now of “Flipping the classroom.” It’s hot. It’s the new thing. Teachers of writing smile “about the “flipped classroom” because we’ve always flipped the classroom. We have always workshopped student work. We do not ask students just to comment on how they like a student paper, and we do not ask peers to fix semicolons. Instead, we workshop student work in a very directed way. To write well, students need to read well and perceptively. This can happen in directed workshops, where students learn first to be readers and editors of each other’s work. I’m always frank with students about the benefits of the workshop—that they will, at first, learn more as a reader/editor of someone else’s work, then as a writer, but soon, they will learn to be perceptive readers of their own work. Maybe you do not have time for that. Maybe your class is too big. You can bring in examples of opening paragraphs from a previous class and discuss. Or before your students hand in their own work, you can ask them to read their own papers silently in class—and make changes.

As a teacher, you should be asking yourself, why you are assigning a paper. What is the point? Is it to know if your students understand the content? Is it to see if they can use concepts you have taught them on new content? Is it to apply theories to new situations? To recognize and understand the research knowledge in the field? Is it to use key terms or theories in your disciple? If you cannot answer these questions, or if you are not conveying this—how can your students write well? As a teacher, you have to answer these questions:

What do your students have to know or understand before they write?

How well do your students understand your content?

How well have you taught them about this subject matter before they write?

Two experiences molded me as a teacher before I taught writing to college students. First, before Middlebury, I taught in suburban, rural, urban, and inner city high schools, and I attended a private high school—all, vastly different experiences. When I taught English in a NYC high school, I taught 150-200 students a semester. When I began teaching at Middlebury, I knew my students had had vastly different educational experiences before they arrived at Middlebury. I have tried hard not to make assumptions about what they know or do not know, and I have sought to normalize what they knew or did not know. I often introduced a skill with the words, “As you may have already learned or not.”

Second, for five years, I was “just” as a stay at home mom. Those five years taught me more about teaching than I learned from any book, or that I learned in the other 45 years of my teaching life. My two same gender children, from the same gene pool, learned completely differently. One remembered most what she saw. The other remembered most what she heard. One wanted to learn with me sitting next to her. The other wanted to try things on her own. Because students learn differently, I have tried to teach a variety of ways. I create opportunities for students to listen, to read, to write, to speak, to act. I encourage students to share things with others, and to try tasks own their own. I share important instructions in class, on paper, and online on a course website. Always, I direct students to resources. What you might change in the way you teach writing? Take a few minutes to write or think about this. For now, keep this information just for you.

Finally, what have I learned most in 25 or 50 years of teaching writing?

Humility, Patience, and Faith

Humility: You cannot teach everything there is to teach about writing from one paper. You cannot even do it in one course. You are one stop—one important stop— on a writer’s journey. Many people set your student on this path, some well, some not so well, but you are not the only one.

Patience: not only with your students but, also, with yourself. Take the time to know what you expect, and spell that out. Respect where your students are in their writing journeys. Give your students good directions. Take the time to prepare your students. Give your students enough time to write well and to revise– week for every 5-7 pages, and throw a weekend in there. Give your students support, and direct them to the Writing Center, Learning Resources, and the Library for more support.

Have Faith: pass your students on to the next stop in their writing journeys, and have faith that the next person on that journey will care as much about your students’ writing lives as you do.

Mary Ellen Bertolini