assignments ENGL 101 Writing Rhetorically
Teach the Teacher
|
Need to be in touch with me?
LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com |
Fall 2019 Office Hours:
W 9:00-10:00 R 2:00-3:00 F 1:30-2:30 Need to make an appointment? Click here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf |
Overview: The main job of this course is to teach you good habits of reading and writing. And, hate to break it to you, there is no easy way to be a better reader and writer; it takes time and effort. And it also takes knowing how to learn. And that’s what this assignment is mostly about. I am asking you to think about how people learn, what conditions need to be in place for people to learn, what problems do people encounter when they try to learn things, and what can be done to alleviate obstacles to learning?
One way to think about these things is to try to teach something to someone else.
So, over the course of nearly the rest of the semester, you are going to teach me, yes, me, your teacher, something. Then you are going to write about the process of trying to teach me something and reflect on what you’ve learned about what you—what anyone—needs to do in order to begin the difficult task of getting good at something.
This is not a formal writing assignment. The majority of the work is the teaching and planning to teach (though there is some writing involved in that part of it). At the end of the semester, you will write a reflection on the process of teaching me something, roughly 750 words (typed). You will include that reflection in your final portfolio.
Details
1. Early in the semester, you will decide what you want to teach me. Here are the parameters of what that can be:
It might seem like this is an impossible assignment, but I know how to do remarkably few things in this world. There is most definitely something you know how to do that I don’t that you can reasonably teach me in an hour. We’ll talk in class about all the things I don’t know how to do. It will make you feel really, really good about your skill set.
2. Once you’ve told me what you are going to teach me, you need to write a short report. Check the syllabus for when this is due, but keep in mind that, even though, this is typed, it’s informal writing. In the report tell me the following:
3. I will arrange with each of you for a day and time for us to meet for my lesson.
4. After we’ve had my lesson, you will reflect on our lesson. You’ll think about the three things you wrote about in your original report as well as a number of other things.
5. You will write up your answers to these questions in 750 words, typed, double-spaced. This is informal, and we won’t workshop it in class. You’ll turn it in as part of your final portfolio for our class.
I know this sounds crazy. It's one of my crazier teaching ideas. But I really think this could be great. And, more than that, I think it will give you a chance, among all the other things I hope you learn from this project, to see how much you have to offer the world, how talented and smart and excellent each and everyone of you are.
One way to think about these things is to try to teach something to someone else.
So, over the course of nearly the rest of the semester, you are going to teach me, yes, me, your teacher, something. Then you are going to write about the process of trying to teach me something and reflect on what you’ve learned about what you—what anyone—needs to do in order to begin the difficult task of getting good at something.
This is not a formal writing assignment. The majority of the work is the teaching and planning to teach (though there is some writing involved in that part of it). At the end of the semester, you will write a reflection on the process of teaching me something, roughly 750 words (typed). You will include that reflection in your final portfolio.
Details
1. Early in the semester, you will decide what you want to teach me. Here are the parameters of what that can be:
- You have to be able to show me how to do it in (roughly) an hour of time
- It can’t require excessive travel, expense, or equipment.
- It can’t be dangerous or illegal.
- I reserve the right to veto any idea.
It might seem like this is an impossible assignment, but I know how to do remarkably few things in this world. There is most definitely something you know how to do that I don’t that you can reasonably teach me in an hour. We’ll talk in class about all the things I don’t know how to do. It will make you feel really, really good about your skill set.
2. Once you’ve told me what you are going to teach me, you need to write a short report. Check the syllabus for when this is due, but keep in mind that, even though, this is typed, it’s informal writing. In the report tell me the following:
- What you think will be difficult for me to figure out
- What you think you’ll do to help me figure out the difficult parts
- How will you if I learned it well enough.
3. I will arrange with each of you for a day and time for us to meet for my lesson.
4. After we’ve had my lesson, you will reflect on our lesson. You’ll think about the three things you wrote about in your original report as well as a number of other things.
- Were the things you thought would be hard actually hard?
- Were there other things that you did not anticipate would be hard that were?
- What did you actually have to do to help me understand you, to learn?
- How well did I seem to learn it?
- What would next steps be if there was a second lesson?
- Finally, and this is the big thing: what did trying to teach me something tell you about what you have to do in order to learn the things that you need to learn?
- How can knowing this help you to be a better student over all?
5. You will write up your answers to these questions in 750 words, typed, double-spaced. This is informal, and we won’t workshop it in class. You’ll turn it in as part of your final portfolio for our class.
I know this sounds crazy. It's one of my crazier teaching ideas. But I really think this could be great. And, more than that, I think it will give you a chance, among all the other things I hope you learn from this project, to see how much you have to offer the world, how talented and smart and excellent each and everyone of you are.