First Things First

Yesterday was my greatest English 110 teaching experience to date. I presented the Memoir assignment, led a helpful, healthy discussion over three readings (Sedaris, "Cyclops"; Lodall, "Saying Goodbye to a Father I Thought I Never Knew"; Lunsford (pp. 18-19), "Generating Ideas"), and I let the class suggest a topic for a fake memoir (oxymoron?) and created a brainstorming web on the board to begin discussing the importance of prewriting. As I created bubbles/webs/branches on board, I wrote anything and everything that came into my mind concerning the pretend topic (a young hunter's first kill), even writing about details that I knew would/should never be put into the memoir. I purposely did this to try and convey to my students that every detail they can remember, as well as every idea or discussion topic they may present in class, is justifiable and has worth. I want them to feel comfortable enough in my class to speak out freely about anything and everything they don't agree with, understand, or even have the courage to say "I like this, this is helping me," which is sometimes the hardest thing to freely admit.

If every teaching day was as yesterday was, I would feel much more at ease about my future teaching plans in life. I think it's, inevitably, a growing and learning process for me, so I hope this feeling finds its way into my classes more and more often throughout the semester--this feeling being, of course, that I helped my students see a few of the great things writing can do.