assignments ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing:
Interview with a Teacher
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Overview
It’s one thing to learn methods of teaching; it’s one thing to think about your “philosophy” of teaching; it’s one thing to read about how hard it is to teach. But it’s a totally different thing to hear from actual teachers in actual classrooms who are actually teaching what it’s like to be a teacher, what the difficult parts of it are, what the joys are, what their training as students of education and pre-service teachers prepared them for and what it didn’t. I have the honor to know a great many of the great humans teaching in Southeastern Massachusetts because of the very course you are currently enrolled in, and I’m so excited to be able to offer their experience as a great resource for you in this project, Interview with a Teacher. The BSU teacher alumni/ae who have volunteered to do this are very excited to be a part of this project. I hope you will honor their enthusiasm and kindness with the same in return.
Details
1. I will match you up (sort of randomly) with a BSU alum currently teaching. You’ll get their name and email. You’ll need to make initial email contact with them via a polite and charming email that you will compose and cc me on.
2. As a class, mainly in-class, we will develop a set of common questions that you will then email to your alum. They’ll have roughly a week to answer them, and you will be responsible for keeping your alum up to date on deadlines. To support your question development, we will be reading about the experience of students and teachers in Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary. We will also consider questions that you might have about teaching either based on experience, on what you know about education from your classes or media, and in light of some of the reading, including the Constance Weaver and the Why Johnny Can’t material, that we have done or will do in this class.
3. Once you’ve gotten preliminary information from your alum, you will want to try to identify themes and/or questions you have about what your alum is telling you. You may have to develop, on your own, some follow up questions. Your alums will be prepared for this, but do be respectful of their time and of the fact that they are working teachers with a lot going on.
4. You will write a “profile” of your alum, 1000 words, typed. In your profile, you’ll want to establish a kind of thesis/ main idea/theme for what you learned about teaching (particularly teaching ELA) from your alum. Some specifics you can consider as you do this:
HOW YOU WILL TURN IN YOUR WORK
We will have a workshop on a draft of your profile prior to your turning it in. Check the syllabus for dates. On the workshop day, please bring a hard copy of your profile to class--double-spaced for ease of reading. When you turn in the draft to me, you will need to turn in all of your email communication with your alum (the easiest way to accomplish this is to simply cc me on all your communication leading up to the final product--I will save them to a file expressly set up for this assignment. When you turn in your final draft, please include your workshop draft with comments, any in-class writing I ask you to about your draft, your revision plan, etc, and the final draft. I prefer these in hard copy, but will accept them in electronic form but it's on you to figure out how to get me all the things I asked for if you do.
When you are done with your individual profile, we will come together as a class to develop a visual (a prezi type deal thing or something better or different—still working that out), that traces the themes/issues/ joys that you found in your individual profile to try to get a wider sense of what a teacher’s life is like. This will be an in-class, whole-class project.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
Your Interview with a Teacher assignment is worth 15% of your final grade. In order to earn a “B” grade for that 15% you must
If you fail to meet the requirements to earn a “C” grade you will fail the 15% of your final grade that the Interview with a Teacher counts for.
It’s one thing to learn methods of teaching; it’s one thing to think about your “philosophy” of teaching; it’s one thing to read about how hard it is to teach. But it’s a totally different thing to hear from actual teachers in actual classrooms who are actually teaching what it’s like to be a teacher, what the difficult parts of it are, what the joys are, what their training as students of education and pre-service teachers prepared them for and what it didn’t. I have the honor to know a great many of the great humans teaching in Southeastern Massachusetts because of the very course you are currently enrolled in, and I’m so excited to be able to offer their experience as a great resource for you in this project, Interview with a Teacher. The BSU teacher alumni/ae who have volunteered to do this are very excited to be a part of this project. I hope you will honor their enthusiasm and kindness with the same in return.
Details
1. I will match you up (sort of randomly) with a BSU alum currently teaching. You’ll get their name and email. You’ll need to make initial email contact with them via a polite and charming email that you will compose and cc me on.
2. As a class, mainly in-class, we will develop a set of common questions that you will then email to your alum. They’ll have roughly a week to answer them, and you will be responsible for keeping your alum up to date on deadlines. To support your question development, we will be reading about the experience of students and teachers in Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary. We will also consider questions that you might have about teaching either based on experience, on what you know about education from your classes or media, and in light of some of the reading, including the Constance Weaver and the Why Johnny Can’t material, that we have done or will do in this class.
3. Once you’ve gotten preliminary information from your alum, you will want to try to identify themes and/or questions you have about what your alum is telling you. You may have to develop, on your own, some follow up questions. Your alums will be prepared for this, but do be respectful of their time and of the fact that they are working teachers with a lot going on.
4. You will write a “profile” of your alum, 1000 words, typed. In your profile, you’ll want to establish a kind of thesis/ main idea/theme for what you learned about teaching (particularly teaching ELA) from your alum. Some specifics you can consider as you do this:
- What have they identified as a joy of teaching?
- And, on the other end, what have they identified as the difficulties of teaching?
- What do they consider some of the most important elements of a really great classroom experience for students and teachers alike?
- How prepared did they feel going in to the classroom?
- What do they wish they had understood better about teaching before they got there?
- What advice do they have for up and coming teachers?
- What practices, policies, texts do you use that you swear by?
- What just don't seem to work at
HOW YOU WILL TURN IN YOUR WORK
We will have a workshop on a draft of your profile prior to your turning it in. Check the syllabus for dates. On the workshop day, please bring a hard copy of your profile to class--double-spaced for ease of reading. When you turn in the draft to me, you will need to turn in all of your email communication with your alum (the easiest way to accomplish this is to simply cc me on all your communication leading up to the final product--I will save them to a file expressly set up for this assignment. When you turn in your final draft, please include your workshop draft with comments, any in-class writing I ask you to about your draft, your revision plan, etc, and the final draft. I prefer these in hard copy, but will accept them in electronic form but it's on you to figure out how to get me all the things I asked for if you do.
When you are done with your individual profile, we will come together as a class to develop a visual (a prezi type deal thing or something better or different—still working that out), that traces the themes/issues/ joys that you found in your individual profile to try to get a wider sense of what a teacher’s life is like. This will be an in-class, whole-class project.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
Your Interview with a Teacher assignment is worth 15% of your final grade. In order to earn a “B” grade for that 15% you must
- Correspond kindly and promptly with your alum as you collect your information
- Produce a draft for the in-class workshop (again, see the day or evening syllabus for dates)
- Provide thoughtful feedback during the workshop documented (in-class) using the interview workshop worksheet.
- Identify a revision plan for your profile using feedback from the workshop, documented in writing in a revision plan letter (that you will write in class on the day of the workshop).
- Turn in a revised draft to me
- Participate in the in-class development of the thematic visual representation of what we learn as a class.
- Do all the thing identified for the “B” grade
- Demonstrate thoughtfulness through follow up questions with your alum (if needed)
- Make a real effort to have a clear theme/main idea for your profile and not simply a list of answers to a list of questions.
- Demonstrate real consideration of revision based on the workshop
- Demonstrate a commitment to strong, informative, engaging prose in your writing.
- Correspond kindly and promptly with your alum as you collect your information
- Turn in a draft to me.
- Participate in the in-class development of the thematic visual representation of what we learn as a class.
If you fail to meet the requirements to earn a “C” grade you will fail the 15% of your final grade that the Interview with a Teacher counts for.