I became close with many faculty members at Montana State University, where I did my undergrad, and many of them would tell me some of what I could expect from teaching or going to graduate school after I’d officially been accepted to Western. In the months leading up to actually starting the quarter, my mentors asked me what I was nervous about, and each time I blatantly told them that I didn’t know enough of what would happen to really be nervous about anything in particular—that I’d been thrown into enough difficult situations in past jobs or life events that I figured I’d just take it as it came to me, and I have.

Something that stands out in the few expectations I did come in with—aside from the logistical things like grading, and office hours, and teaching, and facilitating conversations—was a comment that was made by my department head in the middle of a class my final semester. He brought up that, when you’re teaching, the power of the institution flows through you, and that it’s something that everyone is aware of to some extent. I nodded, assuming he was right, and tucked that information in the file my brain keeps on authority in academic settings (knowing it contrasted the the authority I’d been researching in the Writing Center).

I didn’t think much about it after that conversation. I knew enough of being a student to know that their are so many variables in a classroom, and that I would not be able to set too many expectations. I didn’t spend much time thinking about all of the “what ifs” because I knew I’d just make myself crazy if I tried to picture what exactly it was—and I had many mentors telling me it was going to be fine regardless. I’ve spent so much time in my life before now worrying, that this didn’t seem like something that I should worry about. I also felt familiar with the age-group of freshmen and the type of work they produced because of my experience in the Writing Center, that I wasn’t too worried about that either.

The surprise of teaching came to me on the first day. I was nervous in an excited way and went into it knowing there was no way I could mess it up too much. I knew that I wanted to talk to the students about how the class is set up to emphasize their voices as students and give them experiences writing that will hopefully be useful to them later in their majors—remembering the number of resistant students I’d encountered in the 101 course as a writing tutor who weren’t excited about the writing they were doing. It was interesting and important for me to try to point out these things because I’ve spent the last two years thinking about how writing is important across multiple disciplines. Bean speaks to this in his book when he explains an activity he has instructors do and explicates it with:

My point in doing this exercise is to show instructors that they have a range of options in designing formal assignments and that the rhetorical context they build into their assignments influences the thinking and writing processes of their students. When planning assignments, therefore, teachers need to consider not only their conceptual learning goals but also the thinking and writing processes that they want their assignments to encourage (94)

Thinking about the objectives of the assignments is one thing I focused on before the class started, because I wanted to know beforehand how the assignments could be applicable to the diverse identities that would be present in my classroom.

Class started, and I was following my lesson plan. Then, I was in the middle of the most awkward part of class. I was talking about the syllabus before the activity we were going to do and my internal monologue was running on about how how I should have looked more closely at the syllabus I’d written to be able to articulate it more clearly. Then, in this moment of frustration at myself and anxiety, I looked out at them listening to me babble on about why I thought the class was important (and what we were going to be doing) and realized that I was the only one who knew anything about the class, and they were going to believe me if I said it. I thought, “I am the only one in this room with authority over this,” and it brought me back to the moment months ago that I’d been told about the institutional power that would pour in from me in the classroom.

The rest of the class centered around that for me, as I watched them work through their activity and realized how I controlled the flow of the class. When something awkward would happen, I’d bring attention to it and we’d all laugh. It made me think about the ways that Hannah Gadsby, in her Netflix stand-up comedy special, described the way that comedians control the tensions in the room they’re performing. The awkward and tense silence after the first group presented their collage resulted in me saying that we should clap because it felt awkward not to and it worked as a good transition into the next group. Everyone quickly sighed in relief, laughed because I’d pointed out the tensions, and then the class fell into a rhythm. For me, this was a surprising moment that I was able to share with my students, in a way I feel is similar to when Murray describes:

Our students will recognize surprise when we share our surprise at what we are writing, when we allow members of the class to share their writing and their surprises with us, and when we, as teachers, are surprised by what they are writing. They must see the great range of surprise that is possible when writing becomes exploration. (5)

For my class, it was less a surprise of direct/typical/conventional writing and more of a surprise of social norms that we’re supposed to perform in the classroom. Together, we shared in the exploration of what it meant to exist in this classroom together as a learning community—a thing I was hoping to encourage and foster in my classroom by openly valuing what my students bring to the table (this is in terms of experience, skill, identity, etc.).

My new ownership of my authority was solidly interacted by the time I came back to talking about the class and describing the grading contract—being transparent with both how I would have reacted to it if I was in their shoes and explaining why I find it valuable. By the time I received my student letters, none of them really seemed too uncomfortable with it, which I found really interesting.