Serendib Teaching

I might have broken suddenly into song in the middle of a teaching video this morning. But it’s totally fair to be reading them some of “Goblin Market” and then sing them a bit of “Who Will Buy” from Oliver, right? As we talk about the tradition of seduction poetry… My poor students. It’s only

Teaching is so odd this semester. I’m sitting in my office recording videos for class, and when I pause to upload, I can hear a muffled Kevin in the office next to me, recording his math videos for his class. Oddly companionable. In many ways, our work is VERY different, but it’s nice to have

I was sort of dreading teaching lit theory and felt totally intimidated by it, but I’ve sketched out my plan for this first week of theory (Aestheticism & Semiotics), and I think it’s actually going to be fun, esp. since I get to teach Christina Rossetti and Poe. Hopefully fun for the students too —

UIC faculty, we now have a Slack. Woot! I know, most of you probably aren’t interested, but I spend a lot of time on Slack these days, and I find it works pretty well for staying in touch with community. Better than all the things that get lost in my e-mail… I’d personally love to

Heh. One more example video for today’s class — I did 6 minutes on the opening to “Oceans Bright and Wide,” which was a little odd, because I’m the author, so I was talking about what I was hoping to do with the language in that paragraph, which may or may not have succeeded. Maybe

I’m trying to be a little more casual about my teaching in various ways, including little bits of video to demonstrate things. Maybe helpful, maybe not? But thought this might amuse y’all — me talking about Amal El-Mohtar’s poem, “Biting Tongues” (which always has really high engagement from my students — they love it). From

Taught my first Zoom class. (Last semester was completely asynchronous; this semester, I’m taking a hybrid approach.) I told them they didn’t need to have video on, but I admit, I am grateful to the one student who did keep video on, so I didn’t feel like I was talking to a bunch of names

I’ve been thinking a lot right now about prepared versus nimble, about what makes a good teacher and a good experience for the students. When I was first learning how to teach, I took a pedagogy course in grad school, and my professor told us to prepare 30% more lesson plan material than we’d think

I have lots of e-mail and teaching prep to get through, some of it pretty mechanical (copying over dates to a calendar, etc.), and in case you’re in the same boat, I’ll note that The Lord of the Rings makes excellent background TV — pause to watch Frodo offering to take the ring, the fires