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April 29, 2005
End o' year reflections
Following the lead of Steve and others, I'll try to capture this academic year in a list:
- This year I learned that I'm not oriented toward teaching honors students. I had an honors FYC in the fall and struggled with it. From my perspective, too many of the students (let me very specifically say not all of them) had too much insensitivity toward each other, were too culturally and socially indifferent, were too confident of their own ideas, and were too disinterested in learning anything other than editing from me. (One memorable moment was when the class saw, in an overhead projection from my laptop, that I had the 365 Gay site bookmarked. But that's for another post, another day.) Anyhow, give me a developmental course any day. In fact, my best teaching experience ever was in a 1996 summer pre-freshman developmental course that was populated by students who might or might not have known that they had a lot to learn (some of them came from prep schools and so were surprised to discover they were behind) but who were eager, able learners. I'm still in contact with people from that class. All this is not to say that I shouldn't be oriented towards honors students; on the contrary, I believe I should, and I believe that they deserve capable teaching as much as anyone else. But as I can see the conclusion of my teaching career approaching, I'm just not motivated to become that capable teacher. Here's the senioritis in me speaking: Let somebody else do it. Lotsa people are eager for the opportunity; let 'em have it. One thing from my experience in that course that I'll apply in all my future teaching: attention to issues of diversity has to happen early and be very explicit. First, students have a lot to learn; and second, it establishes (whether implicitly or explicitly) some ground rules for classroom conversations. I have a lot, lot, lot more to say about what I do and don't see as the necessary connections between writing instruction and diversity, but that's another post, another time.
- This year I taught my first-ever grad course in pedagogy. It was a beautiful experience. We had some serious talks about pedagogy there, and I learned a lot from those conversations.
- This was, of course, the year that I kicked off my second semester with a big car wreck that totalled my car and my semester. As as result of the wreck, I now have a truck instead of a car; I didn't get to teach an advanced course in style; and I was very disappointed in how my comp history grad class developed. Not disappointed in the students, but in the course; it didn't accomplish what I'd intended. Missing the second, third, and fourth weeks of school and then coming back not yet recovered from post-concussion syndrome just isn't the way to develop a course. Whether it would have gone well without the wreck is an unanswerable question. Maybe, too, my expectations for what we'd accomplish were too high. I simply don't have the objectivity to figure that out. I just have to content myself with the bits that we did accomplish.
- This year I didn't schlep across the country for CCCC. That was hard—I love conferences—but instead of wearing myself out during spring break, I rested. So it was a good idea, one I'm going to stick with: no more long-distance conferences. Unmedicated diabetes management is much easier when you're not exhausted.
- This year I've continued on my path to reduce my involvement in PhD exams and dissertations. I hadn't gone excessively overboard on that, but for awhile there I was definitely carrying more than my share of the load. So I've been working toward (and think I've actually reached) a normal or at least near-normal load. I haven't yet had to compromise a high-quality level of involvement in grad students' projects, but I have compromised my own writing. So rather than reduce the quality of my involvement in grad students' projects, I've been reducing the quantity and am happy with the level I've hit.
- This year our writing program developed its undergraduate curriculum. We now have a minor in writing and are well underway in designing a major, as well. What we're remedying is the all-too-common scenario of an undergrad curriculum dominated by FYC—i.e., dominated by what is widely (however inaccurately) regarded as normative instruction. Writing programs all over the country are doing work similar to ours, trying to maintain and develop a meaningful FYC but not have the curriculum defined by or confined to FYC.
- This year for the first time I got to meet the undergrads who will be my students this fall. I'll be teaching an upper-level research course to pre-professional (mostly pre-med) seniors, plus some writing majors. I've conferenced with one of the writing majors and met with seven of the learning community women and come away from those meetings with lots of ideas from the students about what they'd like. And they've heard my ideas, as well.
- This year the authorship book that Tracy and I edited was published, and I'll have that as a text the next time I teach authorship.
- This year Sandra and I started working on argument theory and pedagogy together. Our C's proposal will be part of that, and we'll also develop a textbook.
- This year I started a blog. It has served me exceptionally well through this spring semester, helping me feel connected while I was recovering from the accident, and helping me through the depression I've experienced as a result of the trauma and the consequent collapse of my semester. I pledge to cease wrecking my car and to continue blogging.
Posted by senioritis at April 29, 2005 07:52 PM