July 25, 2008
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LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!
Well, the course shells are there. My eCompanions. Waiting to be played with. Ready for revision. I have the syllabus pretty much figured out; will have to play this new theme by ear, mostly, but that’s good for me and new for me. Wade introduced me to this blog back in the spring (or maybe the fall?) called The Genre in Drag. Very blasphemous. Has students asking WHAT IS AN ESSAY? WHAT ISN’T AN ESSAY? Questions of that nature, questions about writing. If I go way back to when Kevin and I had students writing about blogging, I recall that students write well when they have to write about their writing. Seems backwards, maybe, but I remember them having interesting things to say. So, the birth of a new theme has occurred. I hope it goes well. It’ll be the last class I have on MWF, so it’ll also be a blasphemous way to wrap up the weeks/days.Plus, I am also thinking of taking my English 120s (both the online and the on-campus ones) and putting in pieces of the upcoming Election in there. Controversy is the theme of that class, so that works well. Maybe debates on Fridays? Odd assignments having them research the candidates (the main ones and others). Things like that. I won’t be able to do that for another four years.
First things first. I have to wrap up my summer course tomorrow (and plug in final grades). THEN I can start thinking about FALL 2008. Ooooooh. I’m excited. Oh, and I need to find out more about the FYE class I’m teaching on Mondays at noon too. That’s a newbie.
Comments (7)
Reading your posts makes me crave being back in school again. I’m accepted for the Spring Semester in Willmar. Maybe finish up what I started when I graduated from high school?!
@apennieformythoughts -
AWESOME. I think academics… learning… is where I feel like me the most.
Darn. I am disappointed. I already took FYE my first semester here and I hated it…too bad you werent the teacher then:)
And I think that all sounds like a great idea. It would make the class even more exciting, plus it challenges everyone in the class to actually learn something about politics.. I know I dont watch any of that so….Great Ideas..I wish I could take your classes over!!!!
@mommy0724 -
You should give me some tips on how to teach certain lessons in that class… like what activities/assignments could’ve been more fun/interesting. I haven’t started prepping for it yet…
@teacher47 - I know that when we took the class we had to have 6 hours of volunteer time ..if I remember correctly, noone did it so that would be a bad idea, personally I didnt care for it much. I enjoyed having Norman Coley come and talk to us, he was alot of fun. He talked about different issues like racism, marriage things like that…everyone had a lot of fun. I know we did a paper on procrastination. It was okay, but not my favorite. It would be an idea to do a paper in that class, but you also have a way of making stuff like that fun. I remember the class was really boring. Alot of powerpoint lecture stuff that was not really interesting. They talked a lot about the first year of college and how to get assignments done and how to use time wisely. I think it was all very helpful, but I wish they would have made it more fun. Giving it a twist of some sort. Those are some ideas. I hope it helps. You’re really good about making things interesting and fun so!!!!
@mommy0724 -
THANK YOU so much. That’s VERY helpful stuff. Hmm… I wonder if some crazy scavenger hunt would be fun… or if I gave groups teeny tasks (similar to homework) and then timed them to see who would get ‘em all done fastest? There must be something fun I could do with the class to demonstrate time-management skills… huh…
That all sounds like it would be alot of fun!