Entries from January 2008

January 31, 2008

But Look Where Sadly the Poor Wretch Comes Reading

My literature students have been tasked to tackle Hamlet this weekend.
I taught Hamlet last term, and I had some moderate success with it, but I feel the need to take a different approach to the play this time around. Last semester, I didn’t focus very heavily on the text at all – we were [...]

January 30, 2008

Grammar Wednesday

Pronoun Reference Edition!
Even though they’re in a composition (as opposed to a grammar) class, I’ve been giving my students worksheets and quizzes to get them up to speed on the basics of grammar – you know, all the rules and conventions they don’t give a fig about when they’re texting their friends’ cell phones?
We started [...]

January 28, 2008

She Did it AGAIN!

She’s gone and asked me for my opinion!
I was sent a survey about the professional development meeting we had on Friday – the one that I wrote about here that got me all jazzed about thinking critically again. The colleague who sent the survey is J, the same one who was asking about why [...]

January 25, 2008

I Want More

TCC had a faculty development meeting this morning.
Usually, I can’t stand these things, whether they’re for TCC or the health club or, really, for pretty much anyplace I’ve ever worked.  They’re generally poorly planned, long-winded, and boring, and this is the second such meeting I’ve had to attend this week (the first being an excruciating [...]

January 24, 2008

Why I Teach Film as Literature

I wanted to be all dramatic and just put this image as my entire blog post under this title – if you’ve seen this movie, then you know; what else can I say? – but it turns out that I DO have more to say than can be expressed in this picture:

If you’ve not seen [...]

January 23, 2008

Grammar Wednesday

I’m collecting essays from both of my classes today: the lit students have their Jekyll & Hyde essays due this morning and my composition class was supposed to turn in a reading response by 5 p.m. yesterday. In anticipation of what I’m likely to find, I thought I’d offer you this for our Grammar [...]

January 22, 2008

My Essay *edited*

Truly – if you have the gumption to make it all the way through this, please give me your honest and, if you’ve got it, brutal feedback. It’s been a while since I’ve written an answer to an essay question, and it’s a skill I want to keep sharp. Your helping me to edit and [...]

January 19, 2008

The Essay Questions

Clix, over at Epic Adventures are Often Uncomfortable, left me this comment:
So what were the essay prompts?

Here, for your information, are the five essay questions I gave to my (now six) students (one of them dropped me like a hot potato. I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to find out why…):
1. Discuss [...]

January 18, 2008

Tagged Again!

Lanie over at Laniepainie tagged me for this meme:
*Link back to the person who tagged you. (Check!)
*List three things that you believe are necessary to make writing good and powerful. (Check!)
*Tag five others and comment at their blog informing them that they’ve been tagged with this meme. (AW! Do I HAFTA!? [...]

January 17, 2008

Essay Writing

I learned an important lesson yesterday.
I’ve mentioned that my literature class is populated by seven women. It’s a very small group, but I think that will actually work to our advantage.
Of course, that’s assuming that everyone shows up for class.
Yesterday, I had four of my seven students show. Of that four, one had [...]