new thread

okay, here goes, new idea... focus on my work. so... one of the most challenging aspects of the job of teaching is deciding what to teach (when you are lucky or unlucky enough not to have a curriculum, and even then of course you have your freedom about what/how to teach)... in teaching english, i find figuring out what to teach quite challenging (or did during student teaching)... but, i think it comes down to what is most useful to them in life... and as a teacher, i am kind of also playing the role of a parent, like what tools do i believe you need to be given for life... as an english teacher, it's how can i help you develop sensitivity to the nuance (and splendor) in life... how can i help you to recognize, critically think about, emotionally respond to, and create nuance (and splendor)...

then there is also the teaching of writing which i've done and can/will probably do more of at scc. i've got some good writing assignments that i stole from others there... i teach essay writing (also the research paper, but my preference is for personal essays, though it also means more emotional investment)... with the essays, i have the students start by writing an essay about a life-changing experience (giving them many possible meaningful yet universal points of entry), then i have them write about an important person (with any kind of influence) and how that person affected their life, then the last two are still a little sketchy, and maybe there should only be a total of 3 (with a couple drafts each over 10 weeks at scc). so far, the third essay has been evaluating... i've had them evaluate a film, a videogame, music, art, a restaurant, whatever... that one is trickier to teach how to do... i also have been having them do the final essay on a controversial issue, but i've found that i haven't had time to do it justice... i really like to help them recognize middle ground and to embrace the complexities within the conflict... but i also get tired of reading abortion papers... i guess there's a lot of education in ethical nuance that needs to accompany writing about controversy, and as a new teacher that's been tough for me to find the best way to do... there is also the option of having them do observing essays... i've done practicing for that with freewriting... an arts and humanities student shared with me when i was subbing at lincoln high that mary dickinson once brought in a trashbag from a hotel and emptied it on a table and had the students write about what the people in that room were like... the students enjoyed that creative act of writing and thinking about other people. so i did that at scc. i emptied the class trashcan out onto the table and asked them to write about what the contents said about students at scc. there was a lot of pop--all over the table... i wrote with them for awhile, freewriting, talking about sugar addictions and caffeine and our perception that certain products will get us through boredom, etc. actually, everybody came up with interesting stuff (again through freewriting, writing what comes to your head, not necessarily anything conforming to any expectations)... then i went to the janitor's closet and cleaned up after myself. i think that act contributed to my students saying (among other things) on my evaluations that i'm very creative :)

anyways, i was getting into what to teach... i think the hard part of being a teacher is figuring out how to engage students... when it comes down to it, it seems like we all need different things at different times, hence the difficulty of the question asked in interviews: how do you engage all learners? how do you engage all learning styles, aptitudes? the sort of canned answer to that is that i try to provide a range of experiences, some social and collaborative, discussion, and group and individual projects. actually, i don't think i've ever said that answer, but it sounds good. there are social activities to do, and i have a book (or section of an instructor's manual at scc) that i haven't read yet... i tried to create a group activity on "the good life," what makes it good. with the first class i taught at scc, with older students, i got some really rich results. this last time at scc, some of the projects were really flops, embarrassing the students and me. i didn't scaffold that enough.

i want to get to what will engage students, though, and teaching writing, i am glad to see that the latest issue of my subscription to "the writer" magazine just arrived and its main feature is "how to keep your readers engaged: advice from veteran adult and children's writers on how to sustain interest in your story." ultimately, i think this kind of thinking is really useful, looking at how interest is sustained in stories... i think everything is a story... religion, different fields (the stories of math, the stories of social studies)... all knowledge comes from people having subjective experiences and then sharing them... then seeing if they can get other people to believe them. for example, i've had some experiences that some people wouldn't/haven't believed based on how their schema, previous knowledge, and ideas of what is truth and believable and provable have taught them. i had no idea whether chakras were real or not until the other day. i've had no idea whether a lot of new-agey stuff that liz talks about is real, but increasingly i see from my subjective experience (my own existential reality) that they are true... all of our truths are true... which leads me down a track of how the best writer i've probably met was just in my last class... her mom has "schizophrenia" or something and is routinely hospitalized, and this student said that she came to grow up backwards, arriving to happiness (kind of) through sadness... i could relate with her. her writing, though, is so, so, so, so, so, so, rich... so full of perception and sensory experience. of course, she was dealing with a lot right then... she had to go down to florida with her dad... her mom had run away, maybe attempted suicide, been institutionalized again. her mother had had a baby taken away from her by the government about a year ago... my student also had a pregnancy scare, her boyfriend was buying a house... i love teaching at the community college level, but those people (some kids) are really getting into the thick of life, usually with tons less support than i've had. well, basically always on that front...

but i digress all over the place. that's what this post is about i guess. my point was that i want to explore with students what makes a compelling story, thus what makes life compelling. how do you reach an audience? how do you connect with others while maintaining your credibility? how do you determine what your objective is with writing and then manage to achieve that? how do you create writing that is exploratory and honest about that while also being crafted? those are all hard things and yet good things, i think. frustrating and good.

also in the latest issue of "the writer" magazine there is an interview with natalie goldberg, one of my teachers (via her books) on writing... here she talks about the book she wrote on writing memoir (which lies on my shelf "to read"). the blurb she says on the cover is:

"People want all the answers before they actually do the writing. But it's in the process of writing that you discover where you're going to go with a memoir." i'd add that people also want the answers before they do the living, but with the tools we give them as english teachers, perhaps they're better prepared for the living (by being given the mental tools... particularly tools with writing/synthesizing).

yes, the process is important. sometimes i want to write a memoir (which ultimately involves writing about/engaging the past). the odd thing is that happiness comes from being in the moment. but i think we can also cull insights by engaging the past. we can also re-live it or at least make it tangible so that we can put it in our hands and share it with others... i find this really valuable because i wish i had something like this from my mom. instead, i have lots of stories about her life that i try to store in my head to have her, but that does take up hard-drive space (so to speak)... all of my mom's family except my brother have died, so i like to try to keep them and understand them on paper. and then basically all of my dad's side is alive, so i've tried to understand all of that. but they're alive. so i want everything with them to stay healthy. but it is. but writing about my dad is tricky. we have a very good relationship, and yet to be fully honest i would admit to its previous inadequacies. but he would be okay with that. and then sometimes it's like why spend my time doing this? but i've made the time for this, so maybe i ought to use it... on and on... blah, blah, blah, so goes my soundtrack. sometimes i like to play other songs instead. some songs are better than others. but sometimes we also need to switch tracks for all intents and purposes. so i'm glad to have enough material and facility with different modes in life to do that.