Well, I can honestly say that I don’t feel that I wasted any meetings, and that’s a first. I don’t know if I’m just more disciplined now than I used to be or something else is going on, but as I reviewed my personal notes from the revision groups, I could remember something helpful I [...]
I’ve got two more groups that need to meet with me, and the hardest week of my semester except for portfolio-grading will be over.? This year’s classes have been the most responsible I can remember teaching in freshman comp; almost everyone had good comments when they came to the meeting, and almost nobody simply did [...]
I just had to post this picture when I found it.
Once again, I’m a bit amazed to discover that in fact I can teach English.? So far, I haven’t had any revision meetings that I’ve regretted.? I suppose about half of them remain to go, but usually I start slow and get better, so I’m hopeful. For the last? several semesters, in lieu of individual [...]
I think I like this new look enough that I’m going to blog here a while. I’m going to miss the Java scripts from blogger, but having a look that not everyone has is, I think, enough reason to change. Fans of Micah pictures can still get them from the link to the right, and [...]
We wrapped up our first unit on Republic proper today, and the discussions were quite good. I have to keep reminding the students (and myself) both how alien Plato’s world was and how much we (the students and their teacher) are heirs to Plato’s basic project. Plato’s big question in today’s section was how to [...]
Thursday’s classes were good, and I actually mananged to have two, very different conversations in them. Since I remember 11:00 a little better, I’ll start with that. Their main concern was that Plato considers obscuring information for the good of community not much of a problem. Although they did not phrase it this way, they [...]
Today’s reading in Plato was pretty much setup; the real argument begins in Thursday’s reading. Nonetheless, my classes both engaged the text with some enthusiasm, and I finished my teaching day tired but pleased with the results. The more I teach Plato, the more parallels strike me. The Ring of Gyges is obviously an influence [...]
Yesterday’s classes were great; I really do have two good groups this year. I did kick myself after 11:00 class for trying to railroad them into the same discussion that 8:00 had. It’s a bad habit of mine, and I think I might be in the process of breaking the habit for some time still. [...]
In case you’ve heard through the grapevine (or, perhaps, in case you haven’t), a new Ooze.com book is coming out on September 22, and one of my essays is one of its chapters. Pretty cool, eh? The image itself links to the amazon.com entry for it.
This fall’s first-year comp groups are getting off to a really good start. Nobody seems to have flaked out utterly on paper one, and so far the discussions of Plato have been quite good. We launch into the Republic this Tuesday, and I’m excited to take this group through it. In conversation with Mary this [...]
