28. PhD Candidate in Creative Writing and Literature. Loves cyborgs and zombies, sewing, steampunk and cosplay. Horror movies. Wants to be R. L. Stine when she grows up.
I realize I'm journaling about these last two weeks really close together, but I want to make sure I don't miss a week of reflection because I kind of already did miss out on writing about last week when it was fresh in my mind. If you haven't already read Week 02, you might want to do that first.
If you want to read about Week 03 without reading about my personal drama below, click on the (more) link at the bottom of this snippet.
Part of the reason why I didn't have time last week to write about teaching was because after going to class on Thursday without any of the materials I had painstakingly prepared all of Wednesday, I decided I needed to go pick up my dry cleaning and go grocery shopping after my office hours.
It was hot outside last week, and muggy, the exact opposite of this week actually. For the first time, I decided to go grocery shopping without my backpack, which meant putting important items like my wallet and cell phone in one of the saddle bags on my bike. I thought this would be especially freeing since I was on my way to the dry cleaners (which is up a really steep hill for someone who only bikes around the relatively flat areas of town--and I always feel like the hill is going to defeat me, but I switch to the easiest gear and go real slow instead) and I'd be able to feel the breeze on my back instead of getting even sweatier wearing a backpack.
Along the way, though, one of my saddle bags popped off my bike. The bag with my wallet and cell phone.
Turns out, I noticed within about 2-3 minutes of it popping off, though (I'll explain how I know that in a moment) and immediately retraced my ride. I went jamming back down the extremely busy street (this quiet upstate NY town is on the rural side, but it is also on a main through-way) .
But the bag was no where. It had already been picked up.
I felt like I should be panicking, but I wasn't yet. I ran into the brother of my landlord and he actually took me in his car and we retraced my route as well, twice, once there and once back. Nothing. He left me call the police to report it missing.
I told him this story was swirling around my head that my mom had told me the week before. She had watched a Dateline special (that evil, evil, fear mongering show!) about identity theft and apparently there's a criminal equivalent of eBay out there where people sell credit card numbers for five bucks a pop, except, like, 100 people are popping those numbers and once Dateline started the clock, that particular credit card was maxed out within one minute and twenty-nine seconds.
It hurt me more to be without a cell phone. People who know my particular situation will understand why that is.
So I went to my office to call and cancel my credit cards when, on a whim, I stopped by the office of my building and asked if there was a resource for people who lost their wallets. Tina, who works there, called campus security and halfway through her sentence, she was like, "[My name]? She'll be right over!" My bag had been found and given to campus security, even though I hadn't been on campus.
Because of where it was found, and how far away I was when I noticed it gone, I know only 2 (maybe 3) minutes had elapsed. And luckily, nothing was missing. They recorded the guy's first name who found it, and where he worked, so Tina did some digging and came up with his last name for me. (On Monday, I put together a thank you basket for him, based on an idea Lindsi gave me. I got a Blockbuster tub of microwavable popcorn, filled it with movie candy like Good & Plenty and Junior Mints, and was going to put gift certificates to the local movie theater in there, but the theater was closed when I stopped by, so I got him a $50 Visa gift card instead. When I spoke with a lady at city hall, she said that it was his duty to return it because he worked for the city and I said, "Um. Sure, but ya know how easy it would've been to just pocket my wallet and throw everything else away? Real easy. Even if it is your obligation." She said, "True." I'm in the know. I watch The Shield.
I figure if I had good enough karma for someone genuinely good to find my wallet and return it, then he has good enough karma to have someone who actually appreciates goodness in other people and can thank him for it, even if it's a small token of gratitude. (I didn't give it to him directly, I left it for him at his office, which is the way I would have wanted it. I never really like being around when people open presents, and I don't like people watching me open presents either.)
But the scary part was, it turned out this guy called the first person on my cell phone (B) and told him that he found my bag in the middle of the road and I was no where to be found. B told him to take it to campus and then he started to get worried when I didn't show up for next hour.
So that was my Thursday (well, that, and getting a ride from a student who was going to the comic book shop in the next town over, and then going to an American Sign Language [ASL] workshop that night). The next day, Lindsi and her family came out from Massachusetts and stayed the weekend, and I've been busy ever since.
I'm so busy, I have barely had enough time to talk to B this week. I'm on two committees for the Fisher Center, I'm on the Seneca Review Editorial Committee (a literary journal), two different reading groups (that will hopefully help me be a better teacher), and I'm taking an ASL workshop twice a week. Something's gotta give. I don't want to drop anything, though. But if I keep up everything, I'm going to be on campus every single day of the week, and that's really disruptive to my actual work (like reading and writing for my exams and dissertation stuff).
I think I may have to drop the Seneca Review and the ASL workshop. Maybe learning one language a year is enough, and I've already met my limit with Italian? But I have a deaf student, and I'd like to be able to say things other than. "Hi. My name is [spell out my first name]. My last name is [spell out my last name]. And you? Nice to meet you." I'm in the intermediate ASL workshop which is kind of validating, since I still know the alphabet and the numbers after all these years.
But, without further adieu:
Week 03: Technically a Half Week
I really only had to prepare for class one day this week instead of two, since after a speaker lectures on Wednesday nights, there is a roundtable meeting the next day during my class period, so I "hold class" there instead on Thursday.
On Tuesday, though, I lectured a little bit more. I wanted to make sure I covered the quick and dirty version of psychoanalysis, Marxism (and cultural materialism), and The Gaze. Strangely enough, the way I explained these things, and the order in which I explained them, they all fed right into one another, which was kinda crazy/cool. I had to leave time for 4 students who were scheduled to give presentations since I ran out of time the previous class period (although, to be fair, only one of the two students was prepared last week since first years are kind of weird about being able to understand due dates, no matter how many times I discuss it or remind them in class).
Again, I use students to help build definitions of what they think these different terms mean. It works if I start them out with a couple examples and then try to coax them to take a stab at expanding those examples. It's hard to cover these things and feel like I'm doing the students any justice at all because we're not a history class, we're not a philosophy class, we're not a psychology class, and we're not strictly a literature class--so while I want to spend a majority of our time on the primary texts themselves, I find it necessary to give them the tools of these methodologies, at least the language part, so when we start talking about power structures and exploitation, there's a framework of Marxism kind of in place.
Turns out I had another first year student not be prepared, which actually worked out because I only had time for three student presentations. And the presentations were really good, in my opinion. Much better than I could have anticipated. I made a list of articles I cut out of the reading list because it was just too much for a 200 level course, so I had students claim one of the articles and their job was to present it to the class. They're to make a handout for everyone in the class, and the handouts may include exploratory questions to lead classroom discussion or may include the student’s own ideas demonstrating how the article’s argument can be applied to the current text being studied. And, as always, students were encouraged to choose an article they feel they were likely to use in their own essay and use the presentation as an opportunity to get feedback on their arguments and ideas. The handouts are meant to inform class discussion and must contain two components: Summary (summarize the key points of the article, pull out quotes) and Application (apply it to one of the primary texts we've covered in class up to that point). The handouts also meant to create a resource for students as they begin to conduct their own research. The three students who went on Tuesday were great, and set the bar high in terms of standards.
Unfortunately, I didn't have time for my Pyramid Activity--where I give the students a "quiz" and they thoughtfully respond to the rhetorical questions, and then I put them into groups where they discuss their ideas, and then we reconvene as a class. (This has been a dear, old standby from my Writing 140 days--it always helped get students actively engaged in the articles I assigned with their essays.) So I gave the students the questions to take home and type up instead, and I'll break them into groups on Tuesday, and I'll collect their typed responses and provide feedback (since I think they need some feedback from me, aside from their individual conference, before they turn in their essay on October 9th). Oh, and I handed out the assignment sheet for the midterm essay, didn't have time to go over it (that's for Tuesday), but at least they have it. (I wasn't planning on creating an assignment sheet and an essay prompt, but they actually wanted one, so I complied.)
Thursday: Easy Peasy
I didn't really have to do anything except show up to the roundtable. It's just an extended q&a session with Elaine Scarry (fangirl moment! wheeee!), so I raised my hand to get the conversation started, but was actually the second person to go (another professor went ahead of me, actually). I did it partly to show that what Elaine Scarry had talked about could be related to our course (especially since I had them read a selection from The Body in Pain), but also show them that it's not too scary to ask questions. I've tried this at the Spectrum Lecture Series at USC, and none of my students have ever asked questions. But I actually had 3 of them ask questions this morning, one senior and two sophmores. I thought that was cool.
I feel like I'm always out of time. Out of time to read (for pleasure--catching up on the Gossip Girl novels I have neglected, as well as Twilight, to see what all the fuss is about, but also reading for my exams and research), out of time to watch TV (which may seem frivolous, but considering my diss topic, not really--but also watching TV simply for relaxing purposes should not be underrated), out of time to talk to people I love (I have barely had a chance to talk to B this week, let alone any of my friends which really sucks), and, last, but definitely not least, out of time to blog.
I kept wanting to journal about teaching last week, but I just couldn't find the time. So, now I'll be condensing the two weeks together.
Week 02: The Meat: Tuesday, they've read Frankenstein, now what?
After addressing more administrative issues, like asking for volunteers to champion the Class Jargon Wiki and seeing if there were any questions about the Literary Critique Presentations, I told the students that I'm approaching the class like an experiment. And, since it's no secret that the topics and texts we're covering in this class relate directly to my dissertation, I was also afraid of potentially stealing students ideas or words. And then I related an experience that I had in grad school where I literally had a professor tell me that she was going to use my findings (that I had presented in class) in the new introduction to the new edition of the book she was working on. I told students I didn't know how to respond to that because it made me uncomfortable that she was telling me she was going to steal my ideas, as though telling me she was going to steal made it socially acceptable. Where before I had been making an effort to participate in class discussion, after I was told that, I pretty much shut down in class and I felt anxious every time I had to go to class.
I told my students that it was my goal to not be like that, and that it was definitely not my goal to steal, and, because we are sharing ideas--without the sharing of ideas, there'd be no class--I was going to try to be dutiful in recording names to things that I find particularly interesting, and, should I use ideas from class in my own writing, I could either list the students' names in the Introduction/Acknowledgements section or maybe even cite them directly (since there are ways to cite lecture and discussion). No one seemed to care, but it was an issue that had been weighing heavily on my mind.
Discussion Activity: Fishbowl, Version 1.0
This particular class period, they were to have read Frankenstein. So, I gave them a 10 minute introduction to Mary Shelley and her background. Afterward, I gave them a freewriting activity (that I also participated in). I gave them option of responding to the following question, or, writing on anything they were interested in pursuing instead: Trace the similarities between Victor and the monster. Consider their respective relationships with nature, desires for family, and any other important parallels you find. Do Victor and the monster become more similar as the novel goes on? How does their relationship with each other develop?
At the end of five minutes, I asked for 5 volunteers for a fishbowl activity. The freewrite was to prepare students who participated in the fishbowl, so that they'd definitely have something to contribute.
The Way A Fishbowl Works: I asked five volunteers to sit in the middle of the room and then I had the other students remain in a circle around the group in the middle. I told the students in the middle that they were to talk among themselves about the ideas and opinions about Frankenstein--either in response to the freewrite question or anything else that came to mind about the text. I told the middle group there were only two rules: 1) that everyone had to have spoken at least once before there was cross-talk and 2) that their role was to be responsible for their own opinion. I told the outside group of students to be quiet and listen carefully to their classmates while the middle group engaged in a small group discussion. I explained that the role of students in the outer ring is supposed to be observers only and take notes on interesting topics that came up or jot down questions to share afterward.
The fishbowl went on for about 20 minutes, and then the students rejoined the group. I asked everyone how that felt/worked. The middle students said it felt weird, and that they were highly aware that they were being watched, while several students in the outer ring said it was hard to keep quiet and they wanted to jump in, which was good to hear because a good fishbowl discussion should animate/inspire students into their own thinking/participating. I said on Thursday we would try another version of the Fishbowl that would allow that very thing to happen.
So, once the students rejoined the group, and we continued the conversation as a whole, there was silence from time to time, but the silence was never too long, and I didn't try to fill it. It kinda seemed like they were sleepy, to be completely honest. Engaged, but sleepy. I just let students take control of the conversation and chimed in where I felt it was appropriate (like asking students to expand on certain ideas they presented). The discussion was rich, though, and I came away from it with new ideas about how to interpret Frankenstein (for example, the idea of the excess of masculinity became apparent and I shared that with the class, which is cool, because I can now link that directly to Chobits later in the semester, as well as in my dissertation, and the excess of/hyper-femininity of the main character, Chii).
Thursday: Preparing My Ass Off
I spent pretty much all of Wednesday preparing for Thursday's class because it was the first time I was really going to lecture. Students need to be familiar with certain concepts and definitions in order to continue critically engaging Frankenstein. So I had lecture notes prepared for Romanticism, Pastoral Myth, Gothic, Lacan and psychoanalysis, and The Male Gaze. I also carefully went through the two secondary sources I had asked them to read for Thursday about Frankenstein and highlighted key ideas and expected to take the class through these key points for discussion.
Thursday sucked.
Not because I was lecturing, but because I left my apartment without my notes (or my folder with any of my materials, like the roster to take roll (I was close to knowing all the names--and it turns out I actually did), 3x5 cards to steer the fishbowl activity, my outline for the class that day, Fisher Center brochures, etc.).
I also left without my cell phone.
I rode my bike to class and got there at about 8;20 a.m. (I teach at 8:45), but the pain in the ass of getting there early is being available ot students who also arrive early and want to commandeer my time, so I didn't notice I didn't have any of my stuff until 8:37--too late to ride back to my apartment real quick and come back to campus before 8:45.
So I told students I left everything at home and I realized too late, but luckily I had prepared all day on Wednesday, so I was going to wing it.
I was only able to cover Romanticism and Gothic, because I needed to save time for the second fishbowl activity. I was also able to bring students into the definition-making process by asking them what their thoughts or preconceived notions were about words like "romantic," and showing them how to trace that root back to Romanticism. So using the students to generate the definitions was actually a lot easier than I thought.
The Way The Second Fishbowl Works:
I have a "rolodex" with my students' names and e-mail addresses in them. It's a tiny, plastic binder with 3x5 cards conveniently hole-punched that Staples sells for like $2.99. The first week of class, I had students write their name, e-mail and one good thing they're good at, and if they were going to say nothing, then at least one good thing they're interested in. (I plan on using that info for helping them construct their creative projects, since those are completely free form.) Anyway, I had about 20 left, plenty for next semester, but sinc I left my regular 3x5 cards at home, I just took the extras and used them for this activity.
This second version of the fishbowl is almost exactly the same as above, except I asked students to write a question or an interesting quote form the secondary articles I had them read for Thursday (of course they could use their books). I gave them 3-5 minutes for that. Afterwards, I called on 4 students to be in the middle, and I left one empty seat open, and people from the outer ring were free to join the middle group discussion at any time (after everyone in the middle has contributed at least once), the only rule is that once someone joins the conversation, someone else has to leave.
It worked well--they really enjoyed it, and it was interesting to see the different turns the conversation took with the different particpants. It was very lively, and a large number of students actually voluntarily jumped in. But the one thing they kept forgetting to do was once someone entered the conversation, someone had to leave--no one would leave, so I had to keep kinda whispering, "Someone needs to leave," because I saw a lot of students on the outside with itchy trigger legs waiting to spring up.
For some reason the images and the HTML aren't working. But if you want to know what your chances are, click the percentage above. (B's got a 41% chance.)
I have a 43% chance of survival. Just two points above B. But I think that's because B and I won't just shoot our loved ones in the head like you would. B and I are "nice" people. (Hint, hint!) Also, we probably don't know how to make explosives like you do. :)
*Actually* B was the one who would have shot me in the head if I was a zombie and I was the one who would hesitate. Actually, I chose the option where I couldn't kill someone I loved. I'd be one of those cage-builders I think, hoping for a cure or trying to find one myself.
62%. Sorry. I'm leaving you all for dead, and I may very well blow your head off. Though I'd probably try to find Lorie before blowing her head off, too. It's all about the love.
In a true zombie apocalypse, I would not hesitate with anyone except my mom and H, and with B, I don't know if I could put him down if he turned zombie. The idea, as far fetched as it is, actually makes me physically ill to think about. I think I have an overactive imagination. I figure if I hesitate with just one person, then I have to select my answer.
And no... I do not deny my ability to make explosives. Or the fact that I am a pretty good shot...
I only have a 41% chance of survival. I can't shoot a gun and I doubt my ability to make explosives. And I'm a sucker who would try to peek out windows and check on family members. I'm pretty much screwed if it comes down to a zombie apocalypse. OK, any sort of apocalypse, because I don't think I'd do well in a Mad Max type of world either.
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Week 01: Teaching What You Love
Saturday, September 6, 2008
I suffer from Sacred Subject Syndrome (SSS). My favorite topics: zombies, cyborgs, fairy tales, Greek mythology, magic realism, Japanese culture, Ireland, and ghosts are all subjects I cannot write about. If I love it too much, I can't seem to write about it. I'm afraid of something but I don't rightly know what I'm afraid of--the grammarian in me can't end on a preposition although I very well know that in some cases it is acceptable.
Similarly, I suffer from Triple-S when teaching as well--although my students seem to think this is greatest class ever so far, I can't help but agonize over the schedule, what I've had to leave off, how much reading I'm making them do, and whether or not discussion is going well--even when the room is abuzz with the sound of student voices (which is typically a good and happy noise).
I can't seem to relax--although I fake relaxation very well. I realize I promised I wouldn't fake it for people ever again, but this is one instance where I think faking it is the wisest road, because if I'm not confident in the subject material, then the students are going to feel like this is a throwaway class. It's like I'm commanding troops and they're my little soldiers of wisdom. If the commander doesn't believe in the cause, then who's sticking around for the war? So I gots to be confident as a mofo. But in general, teaching content is so much different than teaching a writing workshop. I feel like the responsibility and power is unnerving.
I thought I'd chronicle the teaching strategies I employ throughout the semester, even the unsuccessful ones, as a kind of journal to myself (and others who may benefit from ideas).
The Challenge: The First Day
Activity: The Anti-Ice-Breaker
I hate ice-breakers. Especially Writing 140 ice breakers (Two truths and one lie? I'm going on a picnic? Laaaaaame.) These people are in college and I should treat them like adults. So after we went through the nitty-gritty, like the syllabus, I had them make cocentric circles. The inner circle of students faced the outer ring of students. I asked three questions. For the first question, the outer circle had one minute to respond. After the minute was up, the inner circle had one minute. Then they switched partners by sliding to the left. They repeated this process for the next two questions (except on the final question, I had students slide two partners over to try to get at least halfway around the circle).
The questions I asked were:
Why are you taking this class?
What are your fears or concerns about this class?
What topics are you most excited to explore in this class?
The Response:
I got some really interesting feedback. I repeated the question and asked students to just shout out what they heard and I wrote it down. To #1, "Because we're geeks" was the first response and everyone giggled and then I said, "Sweet! Me too!" and they laughed as I wrote it down. Other responses included: they were excited about the subject material, they were excited about the medium (because you don't get to read comic books for class, like, ever). Someone else said, "Maybe we should just put 'geeks' up there again," so I wrote: geeks x2.
To question no. 2, I got some really honest concerns that I thought were really good things to address the first day. My two favorites were: having to read a book in a week and having really high expectations for the class, but then the class not meeting those expectations.
To address the first concern, I said that I'm not going to judge anyone or mark anyone down if they weren't able to read the whole book. But that I do expect them to make an effort to read as much as they can and come to class prepared to discuss what they were able to read. Then, by the following class, try to make up what they couldn't accomplish. I also said that I tried to top-load Tuesdays since they have 5 days between classes, so most of the reading is done for Tuesday and Thursday is a lighter load. But then I said, "Just be honest. If you didn't read it, like I said, you're not going to get marked down as long as you're prepared to discuss what you did read. But if you're uncomfortable or embarrassed, then, seriously. Just bullshit your way through and finish it by Thursday." I think I shocked them by saying, "bullshit," -- I think I said it twice actually.
Anyway, as for the second concern, I was just honest. I told them that that was one of my concerns, too, and I even said, "I probably shouldn't confess this to you since I'm in a position of authority here, but I agonized over the syllabus and course schedule. I spent approximately 56 hours creating it and refining it. And that is part of the reasons why you're doing Literary Critique Presentations--because originally those articles were all on the schedule and that was about 20 more articles that everyone had to read and I realized that the class I had put together was extremely unrealistic. But now, you're just responsible for one article and you can present it to the class and hopefully use that article for one of your projects, that way none of the work you do is arbitrary and it's always writing that will help you accomplish a goal."
The third question was fun because they're excited to explore constructions of gender, race and class in these texts. (And they're particularly excited about zombies and Sailor Moon.)
Why I Did It:
Well, I already said I hate ice-breakers, so that's one reason. The other reason why I chose this kind of activity was because I wanted to make sure the students were engaged in the subject matter of the course from the very beginning. Plus, I wanted to set a standard that students are getting up and out of their chairs from the very first class, because it makes it easier to expect them to get up and out of their chairs later on in the semester if the standard has been set.
The Second Day Challenge: Teaching Content For the First Time. Ever.
Activity: The Gallery
I have taught an intro to argumentative writing class for three years which is run like a workshop, so making the switch to lecture was... so... extremely bizarre to me. And fuckin'. Stressed. Me. Out. But then I realized that a lot of my literature classes (my favorite ones anyway) had a large discussion component to them and that maybe I could incorporate class discussion as a teaching method--that way I'm playing more to my workshop wheelhouse instead of trying to boldly go where no Jilly has gone before. Plus, I think discussion makes students responsible for their own learning, and, hopefully, responsible for each other's learning as well.
I assigned two articles to read for the second day of class. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)" by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Chapter One: Perverts and Parasites from Judith Halberstam's Skin Shows. When they arrived to class, I said, "I know I said I was going to treat you like adults, and I realize I'm handing out paper and crayons right now, but, just go with me on this one." I had two boxes of crayons (24 colors each) and once everyone had selected two crayons, I said, "I want you to draw an abstract representation of your definition or understanding of monstrosity." One student asked if the drawing had to be about what they thought monsters were before and what they thought monsters were after having done the reading and I said it was purely up to them. Then I gave them a couple minutes to draw.
And then I said, "When you're done with the drawing, I'd like you write a haiku based on what you've drawn."
This really freaked them out. But I was doing these activities along with them and I said, "I realize it's a lot of pressure, but I'm doing this, too. I mean, come on, talk about performance anxiety. The fiction writer has to write a haiku in front of her students?" They kinda laughed and kept at it.
After they were done, I asked that they bring their drawings up and place them face down, because we're going to keep it anonymous for the people who want to be anonymous. Then I asked students to help me tape the drawings to the blackboard and then I invited students to come up and view the gallery.
It was cool, everyone was looking at what was created. And after a couple minutes of looking at the pictures, I started, and I pointed out my picture and read the haiku out loud and explained what I had drawn and why. Then I asked if anyone else wanted to go, and if they didn't want to talk about their own, they could choose someone else's to discuss instead.
The Response:
It was really cool because students would volunteer to go because their picture built upon the definition in someone else's picture. And not all students claimed their work but chose other peoples drawings to discuss. It was really positive. It got them out of their seats for the second day in a row and they seemed really animated and impressed at what they had collectively created.
Why I Did It:
I wanted to put the impoetus upon students to take responsibility for their learning environment early on, without overtly stating, "You are responsible for your own learning." I also think sometimes if we let go of traditional expectations of what a discussion can look like, then it can produce surprising results. So, I started the model--explaining what I drew and why--and then had to trust the students to take the lead in the discussion on their own. Some of the drawings and the haikus were really powerful, and I think this allowed students to express their opinion in a way they may not have been able to express themselves before--which, this time, seemed to yield fruitful results. I was really pleased with this activity, but I wondered if it was a one-shot wonder. Will it have the same impact if I do this again in a couple of weeks? Would it be as cool? Would the second time around cheapen the power of the first experience? These are questions I cannot answer at this time.
Challenge: Filling the Rest of the Class on Day 02
We did The Gallery for probably for 30-45 minutes, but then I still have another 45-60 minutes left (I teach for an hour and twenty-five minutes). Now came the hard part. Actual lecture? I wasn't sure how to start. So I began with a quick explanation of semiotics and then what structuralism means and how setting up binaries is really important to create structures of understanding, and how post-structuralism/deconstructionism starts to pull apart those binaries and that's why monsters are really interesting because--and then a student piped up, "Because they started to blur those boundaries!" as if a light bulb had gone off and I was like, "Exactly."
Then I moved on to what "terministic screen" means, but then to illustrate that entirely, I showed them these two trailers:
First, the original theatrical trailer for The Shining:
Now, a fan-based, parody trailer of The Shining:
I explained that this is what you can do with the same source material, but approaching it with two very different filters, or, terministic screens. They enjoyed the contrast and I think it illustrated the definition very well. So then I went from definition and illustration to allowing them to practice it. So I gave them this image:
I made them do a Fact/Idea list, those of us who teach Writing 140 will know exactly what that is, but for those of us who don't, I made them concentrate on listing facts only in small groups. They weren't allowed to make judgment calls. I went around and listened and looked at their lists. I saw one group called the woman stupid, and I said cross that out because that's not a fact.
We reconvened as a class and I had them tell me the facts they saw and I wrote them down on one side that said Fact. Then, as a class, I asked them what were the ideas motivating those facts and I wrote those down under Ideas, on the opposite side.
They focused a lot on the woman and as I felt the energy begin to stall, I went to one of the facts and I asked, "So who's bed is she on?" And they were all like, "Ooooooh. It's a guy's bed!" Then they started talking about the guy. And then I asked, "How do you know it's a guy? How do you know that she isn't a lesbian?"
So then I used that as an opportunity to talk about how sometimes we are expected to fill in the blanks in culture because we come to images already with a set of preconceived notions. Such as how the idea behind her pose was archetypal "stupid blonde" and "damsel-in-distress-y," then used that as a way to address an idea another student had said and that I wrote down but wasn't really explored that "the pose is obviously fake; she's not really scared of anything." I used that to talk about the gazer/gazed binary and how the woman in the ad could be interpreted to be in control on the gaze of the viewer. Then I asked them to talk about the colors, because they hadn't really addressed those.
And so they started shouting out the colors and then they started shouting out what the colors meant, and once they got to green, a student said, "Green means envy or jealousy." And then another student chimed in and said, "And she's on a pedestal, so you should be envious. Like this is something to achieve." And then the whole class was like, "Woooooah."
And then that's when I said, "That is a great observation. Because think about it... we never would have come up with this reading 20 minutes ago. We definitely had to dig for it."
I had five minutes left, but I let 'em go early.
So far, the class is off to a good start, I think. I had someone e-mail me saying that his roommate is taking the class and that his roommate said the class was so cool that he wanted to register but was afraid that he had missed the first week already. (He registered for the class anyway.) So I have 21 of 25 seats officially filled.
this is brilliant. you've set the bar high as far as documenting your teaching process goes, but I hope you keep doing this.
my one question is how the readings were incorporated into the activities - that was the only thing that wasn't 100% clear. as you discussed the haiku and images, were there "teachable moments"? or was explicit discussion of the reading just not the first priority?
That is such a good question. We didn't have an explicit roundtable of discussion for the readings--which made me very uncomfortable at first because I've never taught this way before. I just let what they read inform our discussion. It fit particularly well when we were doing the The Gallery because some students would bring up the articles on their own and how the article influenced what they drew. Or, if we went to an anonymous picture, I would talk about connections to the articles I saw happening to get the momentum started, but I only had to do that once or twice before students took control.
I'm nervous about Tuesday. They're reading Frankenstein. I'm thinking about using a fishbowl but I have never used a fishbowl before, so there's anxiety whenever a new method is employed.
I'll explain "fishbowl" on Tuesday after I've taught. Because if I explain what it is now, I am afraid I won't actually update and continue to write about the teaching process. And writing about this is something I really want to make sure I continue to do. I think it'll help me reflect on what has been covered already and what I can improve or what is working. And hopefully I'll be able to use this in the future, too. Unless we can finally connect on the phone (we keep missing each other!) then I'll tell you. ;)
How do you think the SSS will affect your dissertation writing? Does your critical project have to connect to your creative one? How are you going to avoid SSS in each section?
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Holy Mary Mother of Tyra!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
America's Next Top Model, cycle 11 filmed on the rooftop of my building!!! (In Los Angeles, not Geneva.) It made me feel at home.
said...
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