ENGL 101

During my first semester of teaching, I taught two sections of ENGL 101 at the University of Louisville. This course required the students to create a video about a community or diversity issue and to write a literacy narrative, rhetorical analysis of a music video or commercial, and a research paper directed to a specific audience. Each project involved three drafts. The class culminated in a portfolio that included revised versions of two projects and a cover letter about their revisions and how they see themselves as writers. With each assignment, I learned more about writing assignment sheets, creating scaffolding in-class activities for projects, and grading.

In the section below, you will find a reflection on a Day in the Life of 101, which I wrote for my Teaching Composition portfolio.

Walking into my classrooms on the first day to students (mostly) my sister’s age was a strange experience—perhaps as strange as it was for them to have someone so close to their age as their teacher. As a short, young woman, authority was my largest concern—too little or too much. As a tutor, I wanted to make sure students felt that they had a voice, something that I now think about in terms of UofL’s Confidence and Ownership SLO. I carried it over with me and saw it during the semester in my actions and control of space and in the students’ in-class participation and conferences. One of these moments, though, happened when I was worried I’d lose my authority.

My Unit 2 assignment asked the students to create a 1-2-minute video that expressed a concept or issue within a community. I was worried about pushback because this project caused me stress when I had to create a 60-second video during orientation (For more information, here's the Digital Composition Colloquium page.). I tried to show how Huntsville, my hometown, brought the city together through community events, such as Greene Street Market and Concerts in the Park. It didn’t work out. My students, however, didn’t seem too concerned. Still, they wanted examples. I had several good videos that my coworkers created, and I showed them a few the day I explained the assignment. Then I told them that I would share my video if they thought that would be helpful. They did. I cringed.

Before I pressed play, I explained that I made it in 24 hours and that it was a rough draft—a very rough draft. One of my students said, “Well, you’re the teacher. How bad could it be?” (You’d be surprised.)

classroom with a podium, whiteboard, and about 35 desks

This was my 10am classroom. The available technology was fantastic, which allowed me to incorporate videos for students to anlayze into my lesson plan.

The large space also made it easy to move desks around for group work or for a giant circle for class discussions.

I started the video and hid behind the podium. A black-and-white video of a rocket blasting off played. Then we were in modern day Huntsville, looking at pictures of markets. When the video ended, I walked in front of the class. They smiled at me but didn’t say anything. To get them talking, I asked if they could first identify the concept. They could. Then I asked them to treat this like a workshop and think about what I could have done better.

One of the students raised his hand. “You could have taken out the rocket.”

“Yes. Yes, that would have made a lot more sense.” My students laughed. “Have you ever worked really hard to find something and thought it was a good idea and then it just didn’t work out? I searched for that rocket for over an hour. And I didn’t want to take it out. To speak like the creative writers, sometimes you have to kill your darlings.”

A few more students started talking about the video, and the conversation went well. We compared it to some of the other videos we had seen and talked about how one thing that doesn’t fit can take away from your point.

I swallowed a lot of pride that day, but I don’t think I lost any authority. Instead, I think I became more human in their eyes, showed them that even people qualified to teach college mess up, and gave them a chance to critique work that isn’t their peers. It also gave us a new inside joke because none of them wanted a rocket blasting off in their papers or videos. Though not all of our classes involve looking at one of my bad draft examples, this day is reflective of how open and willing to provide critique some of the students became. By putting myself in a slightly uncomfortable position, I (hopefully) was able to help them feel more confident, which is something I hope to encourage in my future classes.