Core 101, Monday 8/27

Today was the first day of classes. I started class by introducing myself and letting students know a bit about me. I mentioned my background--B.A.'s in English and Philosophy and M.A. in English (American Lit, with poetry as a Master's thesis), classes I've taught at RU (Core 101 and 102, poetry writing, professional writing, American lit, and British lit). After that I went over the pertinent information in the syllabus, including office hours, grading, classroom policies, assignments, et cetera. I finished class by having the students state their names and a little bit about them (major or interest, where they're from, and last good book they've read). The assignment for Wednesday is to read over the syllabus and bring questions and to complete a first day questionnaire.

3 o'clock class: not all that happy with Young 406, but will make do. It's an extremely wide room with the computer against the wall directly beside the main entrance door. This means if you do a lot of teaching from behind the computer (I often do), it's hard to make eye contact with all the students. If you get out from behind the computer and walk around, of course you no longer have access to change slides, etc. It can also be difficult to get students on the far side of the room to actively engage.

Hard to have too many initial impressions of the students. When going around the room talking about themselves, most didn't seem too enthusiastic. However, I did have two students stay after class to tell me they write poetry and ask if I'd be willing to look at their work. So the class ended on a positive note. Given that I've been teaching for well over 10 years now, I was a bit more nervous than I would've liked to be when the class started. A big part of getting off to a good start, in my opinion, is being approachable and appearing to be a "chill, normal"--but capable--person. Too much nervousness can undermine that. I strive to sound casual rather than mechanical. On the first day, first class, I was semi-successful with that.

5 o'clock class: Went somewhat better. I think having one class down and having gone through all the material I planned to cover helped me feel more at ease for the second class. The room, Davis 142, is also more suited to a small Core class. The computer and screen is directly in front, not off to the side as in Young 406, and there's a table where the teacher can sit directly in front of the class. I covered basically the same material, but felt more at ease talking. This seemed to make the students feel more at ease, as they were more talkative in this class. For instance, I had a decent small discussion with two local students when using the Mountain Valley Pipeline as an example of an issue that could be covered for the "Approaches to Argument" assignment, where the goal is to examine opposing arguments from at least two writers on the same issue. At the end of class, two students stopped to tell me they were looking forward to the semester and excited about the class. Always nice to hear.