So, it has been 2 weeks of teaching new BYU freshmen. On the first day of class, I definitely needed to establish my ethos and reassure my students that I am, in fact, a credible teacher and not some Catch Me If You Can impersonator.
"How old are you?"
"Are you a grad student?"
"How long have you been teaching?"
"You're young!"
I kid you not. Class has been going well, though. I have been experimenting with different approaches in class to see what is most effective for my students: video clips, group discussions, lectures, rush writes, power points, guest speakers, peer reviews, etc. Today, for example, our topic was simply, "The Writing Process." I invited a tutor from the BYU Writing Center to speak to my class for 10 minutes about this resource and how they can use it. Then I used a power point to talk about the idea of writing as a process rather than a product.
I first showed them the "Widely-Accepted Model," which is formulaic and non-descriptive:
Then I showed them the "Realistic Model," which is more accurate and entertaining:
I had fun making these, and my students had fun laughing and discussing them. The purpose for the lesson was to show students that writing is a process, a craft, and not just a product to be written the night before. I shared this quotation with them too:
So that's the teaching update if anyone was wondering. If you have any questions, feel free to email me or visit me during office hours.
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