While we were catching up over the weekend, a friend asked me, “have you told anyone to ‘write drunk, edit sober’ yet?” We got a good chuckle out of it but the question was on my mind when I chose “Writers are Mythical, Magical, and Damaged” by Teri Holbrook and Melanie Hundley as one of the […]
Prompts
Bad Ideas
For my portion outside of the collective reading, I focused in on the sections titled: “You’re Going to Need This for College” and “Anyone Can Teach Writing”. Both of these sections are interesting reads, and I think that they illuminate a couple of interesting points to keep in mind as we move forward. Starting with […]
Cute, but not much depth
I chose to read African American Language is Not Good English and Logos is Synonymous with Logic. My interest in both of these comes from my background is learning and hoping to someday teach Spanish, and in my enjoyment of theory linked all the way back to Plato. I find all these articles interesting, especially […]
Criticizing Criticism: Finding Fresh Perspectives in Midst of Tired Conventions
Jacob Babb’s America is Facing a Literacy Crisis address the belief (i.e. “Why Johnny Can’t Write” Newsweek article, also referenced in Branson’s First-Year Composition Prepares Students for Academic Writing) that modern Americans are being failed by the education system and are accordingly becoming both ignorant of and resistant to traditional expectations/rules around literacy and composition. […]
Reading things that aren’t my comments (so that we can read my comments)
At first, I was only nervous that I would be a bad at this teaching thing. As time goes on, and my class has not turned on me or exploded in a thousand broken pieces, I’ve started to wonder what it might mean to be a good at it. I thought that writing extensive comments, […]
Removing the Taught & Enforced Distance in Writing
In “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” Jill Parrott attempts to explain the prevalent myth that is the “genius writer.” I know that throughout my own history as both a student and aspiring writer, this was one of the more overwhelming societal assumptions: that, like all great writers before you, the gift of writing […]
Online Teaching, Standardized Testing, Whose Job Is It Anyway?
When looking through the table of contents, the selection that caught my eye was “Anyone can teach an Online Writing Course” by Beth Hewett. I’ve read a book by Hewett before, so I was curious to think about Online Writing Instruction (OWI) in relation to the teaching of an online class instead of my experiences […]
Curing Writer’s Block and NOT Leaving Yourself out of Your Writing
The first chapter I choose to read was Writer’s Block Just Happens to People by Geoffrey Carter. Carter begins this essay by emphasizing he inevitability of writer’s block, and then introduces his readers to Edmund Bergler, the first person to invent the term “writer’s block,” and who was also an assistant director to Sigmund Freud. […]
Worms!
Right outside of my house stands a green box. This box has four legs, and a spigot at the bottom, is split into several vertical tiers, and is filled with worms. More specifically it is filled with red wiggler worms, alternatively called Eisenia Foetida, worms excellent for composting. My relationship to these worms is […]
Ecosystem or Solar System?
At the outset, the word ecosystem, especially in regards to a classroom setting where there are power dynamics at play, brings to my mind images of the forest or the ocean. I mean this in the sense that there is a hierarchy of animals with the goal of survival in mind. Necessarily, in this scenario, […]
The Classroom as a Constitutional Monarchy
My classroom currently is a constitutional monarchy with me as the prime minister, Andrew as the ceremonial figurehead, the curriculum as a constitution and the students as both parliament and general populace. Andrew’s presence, felt more so through the curriculum than his actual physical self, provides the foundational materials that the class is based around […]
A Courtroom Drama, Maybe?
In thinking about the different metaphorical “ecosystems” my class resembles, I’ve been thinking, as well, about hierarchies in the classroom. How, more often than not, some semblance of hierarchal order is consciously and unconsciously put into effect by the second week of class, beyond the standard student/teacher dichotomy. This comes about most directly by way […]
Economy of Literacy
I have to start with something of an embarrassing confession: when I first read the prompt, I did read the word “ecosystem” as the word “economy.” I thought that was an oddly specific consideration, but by the time I realized my mistake I had sort of a hard time letting it go. I think it […]
Prepared for Trouble
In entering Allison’s classroom on Wednesday, 10/3, I came prepared to be challenged. I remember her and Megan being the two most vocal instructors describing the difficulties their students were posing. While I imagined some of the wandering eye problems would be less applicable to me, due to my privilege, I did think they would […]
Karaoke Bar
This might be simplistic and silly, but the first thing that came to mind when I read the prompt for our second blog post was a karaoke bar. Maybe it’s just because I love karaoke, but I’m going with it. In this scenario, I’m the host (side note: my favorite karaoke host is Master Moose); […]
The Academic Food Chain
When I think of my classroom as an ecosystem, an assignment from my high school biology class comes to mind. For the assignment, we had to “go out into nature”, observe an ecosystem, and construct a poster depicting the food chain of that ecosystem. If I am to utilize that exercise as a lens in […]
Playing in the Band
My class is a band, and my room is our performance space. Sometimes I’m the conductor, sometimes the road manager, but rarely a performer. I want my students to play the instruments. Some are more skilled than others. A few may be picking up their instruments for the first time. One or two have a […]
Flying in Formation
I’ve been thinking of my classroom as a pod, a sort of enclosed, self-sustained spaceship. We are a part of a fleet, flying in formation, traveling at roughly the same speed. We share a trajectory and a destination, but inside our little crafts, we have unique, perhaps even wildly different ecosystems. I like to think […]
English 101 Town
My classroom consists of a multitude of moving parts, and I often act as the Mayor of English 101 Town, assigning small projects and jobs to my many wonderful citizens who then complete these jobs in small groups, or individually. I think of myself as the mayor of this town because I try not to […]
Fish Tank Social System
Side note: The first thing this prompt made me think of was an article I read in my undergrad called, “The Ecology of Writing” by Marilyn Cooper. I don’t remember much about it besides it relating to this in a small way for me. I don’t know much about ecosystems, or science in general, as […]
What am I even hoping for?
I think when I pictured teaching 101 prior to being in the classroom I had three general classifications of expectations. The first classification I’ll call fearful anticipation. These sorts of thoughts mostly centered on how I would, in one way or another, mess up. Would I totally boondoggle my schedule and miss class? Would I […]
Being at Peace with Not Knowing
Before I got thrown in the deep end last winter quarter, I did not know what to expect as far as teaching any kind of academic class. The confident, even arrogant, side of me thought it couldn’t be that hard; the old adage of “Those who can’t work, teach” bouncing around with its comforting dismissiveness. […]
Prompt 2: Ecosystem
For this short post, I want you to think about your classroom (or any classroom you are in this quarter) through a metaphorical lens. Describe your classroom as if it were a biological ecosystem, or a neighborhood, or a computer network, or a beehive, or some other collective structure. Try to capture the structures, expectations, […]
Changing Perspective
I’ve been day-dreaming about teaching since I finished my undergrad degree 5+ years ago. I’ve mused on class activities, invented course descriptions, and framed my personal reading in the context of how I could teach it. From book clubs to rearing job trainees, I’ve tried to develop a methodology to my own reading and responding […]
Illuminating the Path Towards An Ease with Teaching
When I told my friends that I would be teaching English 101, I alluded to it being absurd or ironic as I joked with them, “I don’t know English.” Having moved to Chandigarh, India when I was ten years old and subsequently completing 6th through 10th grade in India, I returned to the States with […]
Personality and Collaboration
Coming into Comp Camp, I was confident in my ability to speak to a room. I was sure that this would naturally translate to teaching. However, I found myself fumbling a bit in my transitions and not letting my personality shine through. I was hyper focused on the need to get the material right so […]
Romanticized Ideas About Writing (And How Do I Teach Them?)
My notion of writing pedagogy (much vaguer a few months ago than it is after having practiced it to some extent) mostly consisted of informing, and in many ways enforcing, “writing structure.” The holy 5 paragraph essay, or the elements of traditional rhetoric that have been taught to us since well before adolescence. So in […]
Backwards Buildup and Scaffolding
Before reading Murray or Bean, I wanted to get down my I imagine teaching to be relaxed this quarter. I feel good about the years of instruction experience I have in dance, and my years as a writing group facilitator. These skills, coupled with my studies on Marshall Rosenberg’s theory of Nonviolent Communication, and my […]
Blog 1: Anxiety and Expectation
Anxiety and Expectation Before I started, I was having a lot of trouble creating a vision of my classroom. My past teaching experiences—substitute teaching in charter schools in Chicago, teaching ESL in Santiago—were unpleasant, restrictive, stifling. And yet, I’ve carried this idea of myself as a teacher, as wanting to teach for so long. […]
Blog Post 1: Surprised That Went So Well
Before my first day of teaching ENG 101, I expected to have a class comprised of students who wholly did not want to be there, and would reject whatever I said because “We don’t like reading or writing, and why Ms. Too-Young-To-Be-My-Professor is any of this important?”. I expected the class to be constructed in […]