Y'know, as much as you hear that "facilitate/lead/groups/cooperative learning" is Good and lecturing is Bad, the key is really to have a balance and figure out what works best for which points
Yeah, I'm learning that. I've already done the, "Okay, this discussion is going nowhere. Time to work on usage and word choice!" routine once. (Which is a little different than lecture vs. discussion of the same material, but they'd gotten the most relevant bits about the rhetorical device I was trying to teach, and I didn't have anything else to say about that day's reading that wouldn't have been blatantly politically biased, so I figured I should cut my losses at that point.)
If you're just repeating what they read, it's worthless. If you're adding to it, or going deeper, or using it in a different way - or if it's absolutely essential that they understand this part/can't risk them having blown off the reading - then lecturing's okay.
The thing is, their rhetoric textbook is actually really, really good, with one glaring exception. (They have a good chapter on how to do a rhetorical analysis, and then include as their example something none of my kids could write in a million years, because their example is by someone who's all, "Lalala, I'm analyzing this document through my experience growing up in Communist Bulgaria!" And I just want to beat my head against a wall, because that's not what they have to do for my class at all.) So I would feel ridiculous lecturing on most of the stuff their textbook covers, but I do want to check that they know it and get them to apply the concepts to the other texts we read. But it's like pulling teeth to get them to do any of that.
However, their textbook doesn't do much with how to create a good thesis, etc., so I'm a lot more comfortable lecturing on that (especially because it is in that "so important they can't blow it off" category).
It's really good that you're recognizing when they're not getting it and trying to find alternate ways to pick it up later.
Thanks. At least there's room in the schedule to go back over this stuff later; that's about the only upside to teaching a course that's not in any way content-based. If we don't get to the readings on education or environments or media or whatever it is for that day, it doesn't matter too much.
I like that I can also adapt stuff like that to use for paper formatting for my kids (intro/body/conclusion) since "paragraph" in college writing is more like the size of our "paper" writing. But not being a "regular" English teacher, I haven't seen a lot of resources like that. Thanks!
You're welcome! I'm glad it's useful to you. This week was actually the first time I'd heard of that analogy--from another grad student instructor--and I immediately went online to find out more. I've been trying to find a similarly good analogy for a thesis, but I think that's probably less suited to something formulaic--especially since I don't want them to be doing the "three-prong" thing unless it actually fits their needs. (Which it almost certainly won't. The five-paragraph essay is BANNED in my class.) If I come across anything similarly "regular English classy," do you want me to forward it to you?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-09-03 01:47 am (UTC)Yeah, I'm learning that. I've already done the, "Okay, this discussion is going nowhere. Time to work on usage and word choice!" routine once. (Which is a little different than lecture vs. discussion of the same material, but they'd gotten the most relevant bits about the rhetorical device I was trying to teach, and I didn't have anything else to say about that day's reading that wouldn't have been blatantly politically biased, so I figured I should cut my losses at that point.)
If you're just repeating what they read, it's worthless. If you're adding to it, or going deeper, or using it in a different way - or if it's absolutely essential that they understand this part/can't risk them having blown off the reading - then lecturing's okay.
The thing is, their rhetoric textbook is actually really, really good, with one glaring exception. (They have a good chapter on how to do a rhetorical analysis, and then include as their example something none of my kids could write in a million years, because their example is by someone who's all, "Lalala, I'm analyzing this document through my experience growing up in Communist Bulgaria!" And I just want to beat my head against a wall, because that's not what they have to do for my class at all.) So I would feel ridiculous lecturing on most of the stuff their textbook covers, but I do want to check that they know it and get them to apply the concepts to the other texts we read. But it's like pulling teeth to get them to do any of that.
However, their textbook doesn't do much with how to create a good thesis, etc., so I'm a lot more comfortable lecturing on that (especially because it is in that "so important they can't blow it off" category).
It's really good that you're recognizing when they're not getting it and trying to find alternate ways to pick it up later.
Thanks. At least there's room in the schedule to go back over this stuff later; that's about the only upside to teaching a course that's not in any way content-based. If we don't get to the readings on education or environments or media or whatever it is for that day, it doesn't matter too much.
I like that I can also adapt stuff like that to use for paper formatting for my kids (intro/body/conclusion) since "paragraph" in college writing is more like the size of our "paper" writing. But not being a "regular" English teacher, I haven't seen a lot of resources like that. Thanks!
You're welcome! I'm glad it's useful to you. This week was actually the first time I'd heard of that analogy--from another grad student instructor--and I immediately went online to find out more. I've been trying to find a similarly good analogy for a thesis, but I think that's probably less suited to something formulaic--especially since I don't want them to be doing the "three-prong" thing unless it actually fits their needs. (Which it almost certainly won't. The five-paragraph essay is BANNED in my class.) If I come across anything similarly "regular English classy," do you want me to forward it to you?