Teaching possibilities

I might start teaching one class in SJ and I"ve been reading all morning about theories of teaching beginning composition and reading student reviews of profs at that college. It's interesting to see what they think is good and bad about a class.

bad:

- being boring
- humiliating your students
- acting all biggety
- not being clear about assignments
- being "too easy"
- expecting something (like MLA format) and not teaching it

good:

- being interesting
- assigning good topics
- being fair
- being hard but fair

I guess I'll see the curriculum later this afternoon and will find out what it'll be like to some extent. It's early in the morning, two mornings a week, kind of far to drive, but I'm happy to get the introduction to teaching.

On the theory, I like the idea of talking up "kairos" and pointing out that while we have to competently write a 3-part essay, there are other kinds of writing that are also important & great... And they "count".

How in the world will I remember all their names at first? I'm super bad at it. can i take their photos and put them on flickr? hahah! i will have to.

I can totally make them all play surrealist writing games! Muahahah! And I realize I will have to grade papers about Britney Spears or why Bush and Jesus are cool.... Or whoever... At least I assume so from my memories of helping my friend Murgot grade her freshman papers 15 years ago in TX.

Of course I am dreaming of making them all have blogs. What platform though? Pondering. I don't know how possible it is. On LJ the threading is nice. Vox would be groovy for the multimedianess, but that could be quickly distracting. So probably I'll start a WP blog specially for it and invite them all on.

Technorati Tags: academia, teaching

Comments

[JM]

If you want to talk about any of that stuff--_especially_ student/teacher expectations or if you want to hang out in my comp classroom -- holler. I also have an interesting paper you might want to read if you've never taken a comp studies course or are really just throwing yourself into teaching.

[minnie]

i can't wait to hear about this and read the student blog!!