July 2, 2007
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I was just reading Will Richardson’s most recent blog entry, and it got me thinking about connection… and then I thought, “How can I get each class from one semester to the next to build upon what happened last semester?” These students, in English 110 for example, are learning about narrative and descriptive genres, so why not connect what they have to say in Semester A with what students have to say in Semester B? Why not have them tape themselves (audio and/or video) reading their “stuff”? Or somehow writing something important to them in the college space for others to view later…? I already save particular PPT MusicVideos from each semester to give the next group of students a few to view that are recent; why not do that with other projects/writing in class? And instead of just taking their papers, copying them off and having students read them… staying, “This is what students wrote last year/semester,” it would become more interesting through the use of video and/or audio. Each class could create audible essays around a theme – they would choose the theme (rebels with a cause, their stories about the war, their perspectives on society and life, how they feel they are or are not educated properly, etc) and they’d connect to each other on that theme AND then later, students of other semesters could connect back to them as well. Huh. It could work, and their audience would not just be me and their current classmates.
I was wondering the other day if I really just teach English or just teach writing or just teach whatever. Through the teaching of writing, what am I really teaching? Connection from mind to paper/screen? Connection to others through voiced thought? Connection to the world around them through researching/becoming informed people? Connection to worlds that have come before them through critically reading others’ work? I think I am teaching them connections of all sorts… and teaching them to filter out what is necessary for them to know in order to do what they want in their lives after college. I don’t know if I am doing all of this or some of it, but I don’t think I am just teaching them to write better.
Perhaps it is just more important for me to know I am teaching more than just how to combine sentences and words on paper/screen in order for them to make sense… yet, why is that important to know? So others can understand you whether you are connecting those words in a conversation or for a report. Right?
Constant thoughts: Am I doing something that benefits society? Is what I teach valuable? In the big scheme of things, how important is what I do?
Comments (2)
This looks like the beginnings of a really good idea. Not only can students see how they, and their peers, have developed but then you can get feedback and potentially get spinoffs from the projects they’ve really enjoyed by going off in another direction or going deeper intop certain aspects of the subject.
Going back to your slightly earlier post about trying to get in on discussions with older people,I don’t think it is a male/female thing but probably generational – they might not think you’d appreciate or perhaps understand their perspective. An example I’d probably give is someone my father’s generation who had been through the second world war and say ‘you don’t know what it was like’ irrespective of the amount of in depth research you’d done. Some of the more recent films seem to me to have been very realistic, but when I’ve read books about Burma, where he was, I’ve realised that the best films wildly understated how horrible conditions were. But it is good to try and learn from your parents and other surviving relatives as much family and social history as you can. Unfortunately, for me, it is too late.
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