Sharing the Work Load

I enjoyed reading Boice's CH 7 about sharing the work-load of teaching. When I taught High School, this was the motto. Steal, Borrow, Steal, Steal, Steal. Just do whatever works. I have gained a lot more appreciation for this practice over the course of the semester by observing others teach. I sat in on Devoney Looser's Jane Austen seminar several times and observed the way that she structured her class. I especially appreciated the way that she handled class discussion. She gave the student's the control! She made them responsible for creating discussion questions for each class period. I was also thrilled to see how she incorporated interesting lecture pieces throughout the course period in a way that didn't feel dull. And, of course, she shared. She shared about herself. I always share about myself, mainly in ways that are embarassing.

Like Toby I tend to spend the first few minutes of class talking about trivial things: sports, weather, news, silly things my dog has done recently. I feel like it helps me get in touch with my students. By opening up to them, they in turn open up to me in an honest way. Don't get me wrong, I've had this go awry before and I definitely think that there is something about and English teacher especially that makes students feel like they can tell you things that you don't want to know, but a lot of times I appreciate it. I appreciated my students' free-write about an especially busy week and altered out syllabus to hold more in-class discussion and writing that week so that they could devote time to writing when they were less distracted. This definitely helped in the quality of writing that they produced (and that I in turn had to grade).