Brit Lit I, take two.

Just so you know, this is not about pregnancy stuff. I'll write an update at some point, but I'm still in teacher mode right now. If you're not interested in my thoughts on teaching literature, you can stop reading. I won't know.

That said, how much better is teaching this semester!?! For the first time since I started teaching, I don't hate myself for choosing this profession. I'm actually enjoying it. I still have some anxiety issues before every class, which is inconvenient for Tuesday and Thursday mornings since it actually affects my sleep the night before, but...all in all? SO MUCH BETTER. I feel more comfortable in front of the class, I don't wonder what to do with my hands or feel awkward about sitting on the table, and I stumble over my words much less frequently. Overall, I'm more organized and coherent and far less spastic/neurotic. All good things.

But I think this semester's success (so far!) is due to more than just my changing attitude. I think my current style of teaching, my reading selections, and my assignments encourage the kind of class I want to teach whereas last semester was based on other people's experiences and expectations. Again, I'm not complaining. Having a model syllabus was invaluable, and I would always urge new teachers to build on an existing schedule. You have to start somewhere, and following in others' footsteps is always a valid choice. However! I found that using powerpoints, doing daily quizzes, and lecturing just did not work for me. I was trying to teach like someone else. Although I can't claim that my teaching persona is fully formed or that my classes are completely hiccough free, I can say that it's all getting better. And thank God for that.

This may not be particularly helpful or even remotely interesting, but I thought I'd jot down some of the successful changes I've made this semester. I'd like to think that reflecting on my development as a teacher will someday be useful. Maybe. Hopefully.

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Reading Assignments: Cut way, way back. I tried to cover the introduction to the Renaissance, the development of the sonnet, and selections from Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, Sidney, and Wroth all in one day last semester. We covered one poem, and I had to restructure my entire syllabus mid-semester. Lesson learned. Happier students, happier teacher.

Daily Work: As amusing as the daily quizzes could be (Martin Luther freed the slaves? Really?), I never felt like they accurately tested what they were ostensibly supposed to. People who did the reading could still fail. And they often did. By mid-semester last year, my students' average for daily work was 48. Halfway through the semester, we switched to daily reading questions which they submitted at the beginning of class. This was easier for my students but dreadful for me. It made our discussions haphazard and manic. I'm still doing daily reading questions now, but they email me the night before class so I have a chance to weed through and organize everything. THEN! And I'm not sure how this will work in practice, but THEN! I make handouts out of the top 10 or so questions and use that to structure our class discussions--WHICH TOTALLY EXIST!!! I told my students that they have to come to class ready to discuss their question in order to get credit, and it's been so lovely because they do. Finally, I am basing my midterm off of the questions my students generate, so they can use these handouts as blueprints for their note-taking and study guides for their tests. We'll see how it goes, but I'm really happy with this structure so far.

Class time: I've stripped Power Points down to a few important images or maps. There's rarely anything beyond source information written on each slide, so my students actually listen to what I'm saying (in theory) and look at what I'm writing on the board. With the PPs, they thought they could just get down each slide and tune out everything else. It also shut down any conversation because they were too busy copying notes to think about the questions I was asking. In retrospect, this is understandable, but it was absolutely maddening at the time. I do not have a great speaking voice, so lecturing for an hour and fifteen minutes was miserable and made me extremely self-conscious. I've switched to making lesson notes for myself and beginning each class with a short introduction to the time period or literary genre, writing key dates and terms on the board as I go. After that, we do plot summaries (briefly) and then jump right into their questions. I'm usually able to highlight the important passages in response to their questions, so I still get to teach everything I normally would.

Note: Unfortunately, the greater emphasis on conversation and discussion also creates more opportunities for digression. We somehow went from talking about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to medieval definitions of sodomy and the turkey thermometer explanation of biological differences tonight. It helps them understand the contemporary mindset, but it's not EXACTLY what I had in mind for tonight's class. And then there's the whole broken projector thing and explaining "quaint" without the help of the OED. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

Finally, and this may be the biggest, best improvement I made since it was the first...

Introduction Day: Instead of following my old formula for the first day, I decided to skip the ice-breaker portion and make them pick apart an image instead. I wanted to show them how to focus on descriptions (visual or literary) and think critically about how and why symbols or metaphors work. I thought about this the night before my first class, right as I was falling asleep, so I will admit that it was a gamble of sorts. But it worked really well! This is the image I used:

It's a small portion of Boticelli's Primavera. I knew the image of Cupid would be familiar enough not to completely alienate my students but still symbolically rich enough to engage and encourage critical thought. First, I had them describe the image to me and wrote key characteristics on the board. Once we had a solid description, we went through and talked about what all of the characteristics meant. Cupid is blindfolded = love is blind. Cupid has wings = love knows no bounds. Cupid is chubby = love is indulgent, gluttonous. You get the idea. I think this exercise helped introduce them to the kind of reading and thinking I expected, and it has led to better questions than I received last semester, which in turn has made our discussions far more rewarding.

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I'd like to think these improvements have helped the students, too, and I really think they have. The complimentary emails usually don't start to creep up until the end of the semester, when every student fears for his or her life/grade, but I've already received two about how much they're enjoying the class. Of course, it has occurred to me that they are just being nice because they think pregnant women are instable and impossible to please, but I'll take it nonetheless.