Approaching a New Semester
Struggling to put a syllabus together for the first time teaching a the second semester of Composition at Brooklyn College. Any composition class, really, and haven't taught for a long time - fifteen years, actually, holy shit.
We're meant to pick a theme and construct our readings around it - recommended - and other than some general benchmarks, such as the fact that this class is intended to teach research methods to freshmen (and is required for everyone), the remainder is up to the intructor. A bit terrifying. Head-scratching. In terror. I'm putting out of mind the reality that I will, in a matter of almost two weeks, stand in front of twenty-five strangers and start having to pull out of my mind and guts the ability to guide them.
I've picked 'Government, Society and the Individual' as the topic, a bit cumbersome a title, and have a bunch of stuff from Shirley Jackson and Octavia Butler short stories, Plato's Crito, excerpts from Philip K. Dick and Frantz Fanon, a section on musical subcultures, and possibly two novels -- The Handmaid's Tale and Catch-22. Feel like I'm going into it blindly, but at least now the course is cohering; thought from one week follows to the next.
I also feel, other than going a bit blindly, like I am at a hugely pivotal moment. Whether teaching is something I should have been doing all this time, here's the moment where I pick it up as a potential career (for its worth), as my own writing continues to be a struggle. As a pivotal moment, I'm placing a good bit of pressure on how I'll do -- I need to pipe some of the pressure off...
If I think of it, I'll post the general reading outline once I have it completed.
We're meant to pick a theme and construct our readings around it - recommended - and other than some general benchmarks, such as the fact that this class is intended to teach research methods to freshmen (and is required for everyone), the remainder is up to the intructor. A bit terrifying. Head-scratching. In terror. I'm putting out of mind the reality that I will, in a matter of almost two weeks, stand in front of twenty-five strangers and start having to pull out of my mind and guts the ability to guide them.
I've picked 'Government, Society and the Individual' as the topic, a bit cumbersome a title, and have a bunch of stuff from Shirley Jackson and Octavia Butler short stories, Plato's Crito, excerpts from Philip K. Dick and Frantz Fanon, a section on musical subcultures, and possibly two novels -- The Handmaid's Tale and Catch-22. Feel like I'm going into it blindly, but at least now the course is cohering; thought from one week follows to the next.
I also feel, other than going a bit blindly, like I am at a hugely pivotal moment. Whether teaching is something I should have been doing all this time, here's the moment where I pick it up as a potential career (for its worth), as my own writing continues to be a struggle. As a pivotal moment, I'm placing a good bit of pressure on how I'll do -- I need to pipe some of the pressure off...
If I think of it, I'll post the general reading outline once I have it completed.