Reinventing How I Teach 101

[corrielle]

I've been fortunate enough to find textbooks that I like for almost all of the levels of English that I teach. I really like my Intro to Lit text, I like my Intermediate Comp text, and I like my Fundamentals (This is what an essay is) Comp text.  However, I've never been able to find a Freshman Comp 101 level text that I really liked that also connected with my students. 

So, this semester, I'm trying out a text called Mirror on America, which has a lot of readings about pop culture and current events and food and advertising and stuff that surrounds my students all the time.  It's going pretty well so far.  People seem more engaged than they have in the past, and I think that the fact that I'm constantly telling them that the things that they enjoy, the music and film and tv and art that speaks to them and their experiences is worth writing about has them excited and willing to work.  We're writing an essay about diversity/multiculturalism, an essay about how tv/film reflects/influences culture (haven't written that prompt yet), a midterm about American food culture, and a research paper about any pop culture related topic they want.  It's going to be wild.

However, this also means that I'm running myself ragged creating new lesson plans and essay prompts and reading quizzes.  I used to have three essay prompts for this class that I knew how to teach.  I knew how to set them up, I knew what pitfalls to look for, and I knew how to steer students around them before they even got there. This semester... I'm back at square one.  I just finished commenting on my first batch of rough drafts for a new prompt (the diversity/multiculturalism one), and I've started to discover some of the "bugs" that are in it.  (And boy, howdy, are there some doozies.) So, I'm taking notes, tweaking my master copy of the prompt on my computer, and hoping for better luck next time.  Some of my students got exactly what I wanted them to do.  Some of them... not so much, so I had to spend a lot of class time today clarifying.  Next semester, a better prompt will avoid a lot of that confusion.

I should have followed my own advice and been more specific about what I expected.  Trouble was... I don't think I understood all the ways that my students could think of to not give me what I expected until I had actually seen them.

Now that I know, I can anticipate.  And my current students will survive me.  (I'll probably grade these more leniently then I will the next crop of essays from this prompt... It's not THEIR fault they landed with me the semester I decided to try something new.)

At least next week is spring break for the school where I teach three classes.  That means I'll get a bit of a breather, catch up on my essays, write up my thoughts on ACoK (which are essentially going to be half Thoughts on Why Theon is Fascinating and Tragic, and half Thoughts on Everything Else that is Awesome with a Healthy Dollop of Lannister Flailing), and maybe even *gasp* get ahead.  Also, I've got this brand new Game of Thrones box set just waiting to be opened and explored...

And now, I should probably begin to comment on drafts for my next class that meet tomorrow night. *sigh* Will I? Probably not for another hour or so.  I need a bit of a break after blazing through all those drafts this morning.