End of the semester
The end of the Fall semester is almost here. My last day of classes is tomorrow, Friday 9. I have one final exam to deal with next Wednesday, but other than that, things are really starting to wind down. It’s been a pretty good semester. I’m quite happy with the conceptual design of 480—if I teach that again next Fall, I’ll use the same syllabus, with only minor changes. Teaching the literature course, 199, went quite well, in no small part because David Banash and I built the course design collaboratively. And I’m working more often with some very bright graduate students.
What do I need to do better?
In 480, many students started off very slowly, and I delayed the first assignment hoping they’d pick things up. In retrospect, this was a mistake; I should have changed the framework instead, dropping my idea of revising and expanding a blog post or other online work, and pushing students to get something done. Not doing so led to a very funky calendar. I take comfort in the fact that the student work being done now is extremely sharp, so clearly folks are learning. But because of the late first project, and Madelyn’s arrival, I’ve been slower than usual in returning graded work. Also, counting on students to read on the computer or print stuff out failed nearly completely. Online readings are great (search, etc) but next time, I’ll likely print them as well and make a course pack. It’ll still be cheap (no royalties). Finally, next time I think a group weblog or some sort of aggregator would be appropriate; with a few exceptions, students didn’t look at each others’ weblogs, and most failed to develop effective patterns of comment-and-response.
199 went very well, and I won’t be teaching it again for a while, so my motivation to make changes there isn’t as strong as it is for 480. The overall framework was a success: I have met with several students this week and had long conversations about English studies which show that, clearly, they understand the way the course positioned formalism as a point of entry to other ways of studying literature (for example, I talked quite a bit with one student about feminist criticism and loaned out a few essays for her to read over the break). Next time I’ll use a calendar with six or seven close readings, push students to revise assignments early and often, and cut some of the secondary readings. I agree with David that Culler’s Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction worked well, and that next time we could rely more on that text and eliminate some of the course pack. Finally, I think I’d drop one poet and look for a different biography. I like Hejinian’s My Life, but I think one book in that style (Tender Buttons) is enough. The extra time generated when these readings fall aside would be used to work through some of them more slowly and collaboratively, and to talk more about English studies as a whole. (This is in part due to the expected shift in the role the course will play in our new curriculum.)
Overall, this semester I think student reading hit an all-time low. Many students didn’t buy the texts—even though I spent considerable effort finding inexpensive editions which I knew were available used as well, even this week, students came to class without textbooks, and quite apparently without a clue. So next spring, responses or reading quizzes or something similar are going to reappear in all of my classes. I don’t like doing that, because it seems petty and is a pain in the butt, but the alternative—”discussion” meaning “a classroom full of silence”—is even less enjoyable.
Like a lot of folks around here, I’m looking forward to the break. (Though I will never understand why every semester, at least two students in no danger of failing show their enthusiasm for break by not coming to class after Thanksgiving.) Between now and January 17, I’ve got windows to install, three syllabi to build, and several writing projects to work on. But most importantly, time to spend with Erin and Madelyn will certainly be welcome.
December 9th, 2005 at 11:26 am
If you want a alternative to the weblog, but something that will make people coment and read and interact about the material outside of class then you should just try webct discussions. Allison does it and people get in like real fights over stuff on it and then she reads it and brings it to class and it helps with discussion in there too! The format of webct makes it easy to read and respond to everyone’s comments without having to go to a tone of different websites. just a suggestion, i dunno if you like webct or not.. but it seemed to serve for that class what you wanted the weblogs to do for this one.. but i may be way off..
December 9th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Nope, you’re not way off; I thought about doing that, but WebCT was sorta in limbo when I designed the course, so I decided to go elsewhere. I also hoped that weblogs would play a larger role in developing assignments, but that didn’t come to pass. Thanks!