The Semester Begins
Almost a month without a post...that may be a record. I will try not to make a habit of it.
Classes start Monday. I didn't get as much done this summer as I had hoped, but there's nothing I can do about that now. This semester I am teaching one graduate course (a composition pedagogy practicum) and, for the first time in two years, a first-year writing course. I finally feel like a credible composition scholar again. I know many may take offense to that; sorry. Of course it's not as if you're only as credible as the recentness of the last time you taught first-year writing. Many people have taught basic writing and first-year writing for decades, but haven't taught it in five or ten years, for example. It's just a personal point of view I have; I will have more confidence in my scholarship about pedagogy if I teach first-year writing regularly. I'm class-testing They Say, I Say and am interested to see how that will go.
In other news, Henry will be sixteen months old tomorrow!
Comments
Graff/Birkenstein
My students in my argumentation course love the book. That's a second-year course that is often filled with non-traditional students who often write on evaluations that they plan to use a lot of what the book says at their jobs or even get work people to read it. That always stuns me.
On loving the book
I would have LOVED a book like that in college too; that's the main reason I want to try it.