The Struggle is Real

My student’s struggle with writing is the struggle of all writers against that eternal fiend which is ever present: Apathy. I could talk about sentence structure, transitions, reading drafts aloud and so on, but I find these deficiencies all pale in comparison to people’s ability to give a crap about what they are doing beyond […]

The Tyranny of the Critic 

The first thing that troubles my students about writing is the idea of it. They’ll have to sit down, sit still, concentrate, produce, be judged by standards they don’t always understand. Let’s look at these one at a time. The first hurdle is getting started. Most of them aren’t natural writers, aren’t particularly interested or […]

Different Values

For some of my students, the struggle with writing is dependent upon the context. Some folks really struggled with the literacy narrative but excelled with the research proposal. More of the students found the literacy narrative challenging than found the research-centered writing. In fact, many of them did not manage to bring their narratives out […]

Solidarity

I keep coming back to the same idea: each person as the expert of their own life. Only the individual can say what they feel, want, need, what’s best for them, why, and who they are. To apply this to the question of the most powerful impact of a first-year writing course (or any course, […]

Best Case Scenario

At its best English 101 can serve students like a reset button of sorts, providing a space where they are encouraged to rethink the meaning and structure of writing. Throughout elementary, middle and high school writing is relegated to English classes and within those classes it is further constricted in terms of how it should […]

What it do

This class can… um… Maybe at its best, it teaches students a method of interaction. A way of being. Maybe it empowers them to speak and write in their own voice. To pursue what they care about. These are good things. It’s also a place for students to get personal attention they may need. Many […]

A Wise Chef Once Told Me: “Everything needs salt, especially your English 101 pedagogical ideals”

It’s funny timing to ask about the ideal outcome of this class right around conferences. In my meetings with students they’ve given me a better picture of how 101 fits into their lives, but this window undermines any perfect world scenarios I could dream up. I don’t think that this class is really blowing open […]

An (Idealistic?) Outlet

Because the structure and content of first-year writing varies so much depending on institutional philosophy and “ambition” of outcome, this question is fairly difficult to conceptualize as a generality. In my experience of undergraduate first-year writing, I found inspiration via discovery and promotion of scholarly research. Though that was something I was aware of before […]

An Idealistic Microcosm

Many possibilities present themselves as I consider an idealistic imagination of the impact of a first-year writing course on any given student. I think, necessarily, my ideals will differ from others in my position, and I am constantly reminded of the various issues present when labeling anything as “good” or “bad”, especially, when it comes […]

Prompt 9: Teaching Impacts

I feel uncomfortable with narratives of inspirational teachers and life-changing classes. Certainly education has the possibility of granting a student new abilities, new worldviews. But teaching is also a job, a craft you exercise for a few hours a week in exchange for pay. I think that sanctifying the inspirational quality of teaching/learning draws attention […]

Prompt 8: Worldviews

As teachers and academics, we often spend a lot of time cultivating our worldviews. We refine a distinct and justifiable sense of how the world works, be that politically, historically, experientially, or physically. This level of complex perception, refined over time, motivates our thinking and our actions. When we teach students, we use the term […]

You Can Lead a Horse to Water but You Can’t Make Them Drink

When I think of the idealistic outcomes of the course, my mind immediate goes to the objectives I list in my syllabus: Learning to think about writing in terms of discourse Learning to see revision as the cornerstone of good writing Becoming self-motivated and self-directed learners Learning to identify the impact of and to effectively employ writing tools such […]

Idealistic? I don’t know her.

I don’t believe in being idealistic. I think it’s silly. I live for the chaos, the mess, the stress, the disaster—at least when it comes to writing, teaching, etc.. As far as my ENG 101 class is concerned, I want them to start learning about themselves. I want them to start learning about writing and […]

What’s a coherent worldview anyways?

Honestly, I have very little idea of how my students perceive themselves in the greater context of the world around them. On the one hand, there is the student who says Disney princesses and the portrayal of women in media “doesn’t have anything to do with him,” which shows me at the very least a […]