impoverished artifices

Jennifer mentioned "deliverables" as one of the practical goals of our work over the past three days. While part of me rebels against the notion of such a fixed and narrow application of results, this can also be one of the central problems of teaching writing: moving from abstract thought processes to more assessable relics, such as the final portfolio. Eventually, after thinking all day, we must have something to share with others to be judged as successful, to have contributed to the community.

So, week one ideas. In general, there have been so many useful ideas shared, from invited speakers who are fellow TAs or lecturers, to ideas from fellow first year GTAs. As far as first weeks ideas, some of them come in the form of crafting a syllabus. Remembering to emphasize the collaborative nature of group work and focus on student texts is important from the beginning, I think, as it offers the possibility for social capital formation, leading to more and better discussions, writings, and re-writings. In a similar mode, introductions play a large role in day one activities. It's important for the community to establish itself, for all of us to get to know one another and begin to feel comfortable sharing ideas, readings and writings. While there have been many great examples and ideas for introductions, I admit that I'll likely stick with my version, as it gives me a certain comfort and seems to work well in getting students to know each other, as well as getting into the mode of listening, writing and speaking. My version runs something like this: pair (or triple) students; have them interview each other; ask for and write down details about their partner, from academic to personal and community interests (and all points overlapping); have partners introduce each other to the class.

For other activities, I felt Joan's more "open" approach was really useful for me. I characterize this as "open" as it was less prescriptive, a more general idea of returning to the text to generate discussion, while keeping in mind a goal or theme to loosely structure and potentially steer the discussion. Another activity that seems promising, both during the first week and throughout the course, is to seek a collaborative definition of key terms and course goals, by asking for suggestions on what these terms might mean in the specific situation and context of English 101 and UWM. I think this could be useful both on a "global" course level, by tracking how we might interpret course goals as a community, and on the "local" level, by applying the same to specific excerpts discusses during a particular class. Tracking and re-assessing these collaborative definitions/interpretations over the semester might be a useful way of connecting daily work with the overall course goals, too. As what these terms and ideas might "mean", individual responses from students could be useful prompts for surprising and productive discussions, too.

As far as feeling prepared for the first week, the depth and breadth of discussion and presentation that has already happened over the 21-24 hours of orientation time has done a very thorough job. I don't know that I can feel more prepared without actually sitting in the classroom in front of my students with the clock ticking and the glare of a blank board. I think the goals and workings of the program have been well-presented and, once I experience the practice portfolio assessment, I imagine I'll feel as though I have a working understanding that I can both shape me pedagogy from and share with my students.