…it would probably look a lot like what I’ll be teaching this year.

We had four eight-hour days of orientation for teaching Intro to Composition, plus a two-hour bonus session today. Often illuminating, often frustrating, usually unexpected would be my three phrase summary. Rather than calling the course “Intro to Composition” it should be called “Intro to Critical Thinking Via Composition.” Grammar and usage aren’t the focus of the curriculum, which might strike you as odd for a college-level composition course.

More or less, the instructor invokes the Socratic method to challenge students to find new ways to think about their education and to question their roles as mere vessels for information; instructors are not repositories of answers but rather the chief question-askers. So if a student asks what “dissemble” means, the instructor asks if the student has looked it up. If the student doesn’t understand the definition, the instructor asks what part of the definition the student didn’t understand. If the student doesn’t understand the context of how the word was used, the instructor asks the student what some possible interpretations may be. Repeat until doomsday.

This is all fine and good, but it does get old. Like when you ask, as a first-time instructor, what to do on the first day of class. “What do you think you might do?” And if you ask what strategies work better than others? “What strategies are you considering, and what do you hope to achieve?”

Right. At a certain point—like at the end of an eight-hour day of talking about nothing but college composition—physical violence seems like a reasonable way to answer such questions. The point, of course, is that there is no right answer and that all instructors must develop individual styles, and what may work for one instructor may not work for another. However, I happen to think that an honest answer like, “Well, every time I tried something like that, it ended in absolute failure” can help lessen anxiety.

But honestly, after about 36 or so hours of training and orientation, I don’t feel anxious. Just tired.

Current Mood: Just Tired |
Currently Listening To – Bob Dylan – “Ten of Swords (Disc 03)”