Now that I've given you that whimsical, punning, thought-provoking title, I'll proceed to forget about it and move on. Teaching. The Year of Living Dangerously. Transition. Upheaval. Thriving on Chaos.

So--how come I feel so relaxed about my teaching? This was a tough
year for me as a Coordinator, as a person who wants the Program to work
and saw up close the difficulties as I studied the changes with Nance Hahn. But teaching went just fine.

I taught 105 twice, which made second semester considerably less nerve-wracking. I didn't repeat my course; on the contrary, I changed it fairly significantly. But not because I was adjusting to perceived problems of first semester. Rather because I wanted to come at certain problems from different angles, wanted to shift emphasis and focus, and the timing of certain key elements. And because, quite frankly, I like the work of designing curriculum--inventing a course, creating a textbook, coming up with interesting writing projects.

First semester I taught a course titled "Bone Games: An Investigation of the Flow State and the Composing Process." What a ponderous title! And as it turned out, what an ambitious course. The course used Louise Phelps' "In and Out of the Flow State: Composing Mysteries," and Rob Schulteis' book Bone Games, from which Phelps took her main metaphor, as jumping off points for an inquiry into writers and their composing processes. In addition to a Kinko's text made up of a variety of texts looking at either "flow states," those heightened moments of awareness and performance which often occur at times of physical and/or mental extremity, and/or at different writers' methods and ways of composing. I used Tom Waldrep's book Writers on Writing, a book in which a variety of writing instructors and compositionists talk about their writing, what it means, how it happens.

The Waldrep book, assigned because of a primitive need to have a "real" textbook, and added almost as an afterthought, turned out to be crucial to the course. Since I was trying to get these Freshman writing students to take themselves seriously, a book which described first-hand the many and various quirks and idiosyncrasies of what my students saw as "real" writers proved invaluable. Again and again my students expressed wonder at how strange the habits and practices of these capital-W "Writers" were. And, how
profoundly relieved they were to discover similarities between these famous writers and themselves. This demystification of writing, with its reinforcing message of variety and individuality, allowed my students to believe in
themselves.

This ended up being very important, because if the course design had one failure, it was that it failed to take into account the limits on constant introspection in Freshman writers. Quite simply, they grew a little weary of analyzing their own processes and those of their peers. I continually connected writing assignments, asking them to write a piece, then asking them to write a reflection on how they composed it; or, asking them to write a reaction to a famous writer's composing process, then asking them to compare it to their own. We named our composing processes; we investigated each others'. We eventually ran out of steam on this; I had figured we would, but had miscalculated when. I also placed too much emphasis on the flow state metaphor. I had fears up front that they would mistake early emphasis on flow state models for a privileging of that mode of composition, rather than an in-depth model of one view as a preliminary to other views. At any rate, about ten weeks in, we abruptly shifted focus, changing our focus from "inside" to "outside," from analysis of the process to projects aimed at functional writing and "writing in the real world." It was a good move, giving them a change, unleashing them from introspection to expression. I still asked them, informally in freewriting and short responses, to talk about process. I was pleasantly surprised at the sophistication of the writing, and of the reflection which went along with it. Though they had been grumbling a bit toward the end of the introspective part of the course, it seemed to pay off in the products from the second part. They showed good awareness of audience, tone and style distinctions, and wrote with purpose and direction. Most admitted to me, in evaluations and/or conferences, that they felt like "real writers." I didn't get a single paper in the last four weeks that suffered from the common freshman foible of being addressed to the teacher. Though I decided not to teach "Bone Games" again, I would/will in the future, with slight modifications. I had feared that freshmen couldn't be taught to reflect, that they wouldn't be interested in themselves as writers, but I'm happy to report that I was wrong. What I would do next time would be to include more and varied models of composing, de-emphasizing flow state; I would also split the course at mid-point of the semester, starting the "outside" emphasis earlier.

For second semester, Nance Hahn and I decided to team-teach a course. Nance had been interested in the topic "love," and I agreed this would provide ample opportunity for finding a variety of texts, planning diverse writing projects, and would also fill the requirement of being a single-focus
topic that could stand up to an entire semester without students getting bored. We created a Kinko's text which included a wide range of texts, from historical to sociological to medical. We deliberately included writings which were questionable in terms of research, that had "holes" in them, that were not "definitive," in order to allow for critical readings by students, coaxing them to resist texts. We also included poetry, short fiction, and a novella (Voices From the Moon by Andre Dubus), figuring that these were traditionally genres which dealt with the subject of love, and that they would allow us to cross over into the area of pop culture.

The teaming arrangement we decided upon was interesting, and worked very well for a variety of reasons. We had to deal with the fact that Nance was teaching a 209 Studio 2 for Honors students, while I was teaching a 105 class. This ended up working to our benefit. We decided to keep separate but parallel tracks going; assignments would sometimes be identical, sometimes not, depending on the needs of each group. We met 2-3 times separately for each "double-meeting." We found this rhythm comfortable and functional. One thing we gained with this arrangement was variety; students looked forward to meeting with the other group as a break, while it allowed us a chance to create different peer group arrangements for critique, discussion and other activities. The Studio 1/2 mix was helpful here, allowing for more diversity, and letting my Studio I students look at Nance's students as models. Discussions in the big group were lively and exciting; students in both groups soon came to see both instructors as their instructor, and the two groups mingled well with each other. Another benefit for my group was that Nance's males were more open about topics of love/sex/relationships, which provided my more laconic, introverted males with a model; this helped eventually to draw them out.

The flexibility we gained gave us a wide range of ways to work with our students: from one-on-one conferences, to pairs, groups of two and three, small groups of four to five (all either within one class or mixed group), to large group discussions with 15 or with 30, depending on our desires for the activity at hand. The students enjoyed this diversity, and Nance and I liked it for its flexibility. I think there's something to be said for student writers at Studio 1/2 level working with two instructors, and with twice as many peers. It was a real thrill to sit in our office and have students come in to see both of us, to run conferences and have the other instructor join in. The move from large group discussion back to single class meetings allowed each group to look at various issues together, then to return to smaller groups to get more of a handle on particular aspects or related writing tasks.

In both courses I taught this year, I wrestled with appropriate and efficient methods of grading and student response. I used a dual portfolio method; allowing students to select three pieces at mid-semester, then three at semester's end, for a total of 10-12 pieces. Portfolios made up 50% of the grade. Class participation, which included everything from attendance to logs to peer critique to multiple drafts, and so on, accounted for the rest. For me, portfolio grading has obvious advantages, and works nicely with the studio model. It provides for multiple opportunities at drafts, limited only by the student's motivation; it allows the student to get input before grading becomes an issue; it allows the student to develop as a critical reader of his/her own work, and forces him/her to face strengths and weaknesses in his/her own writing. I find that it requires more work on the part of the instructor; I must help, on successive and multiple drafts, show the student how to re-think and revise his/her work, giving detailed and concrete suggestions for revision. (This is still a big problem for me: how do I get students to take revision seriously? If I'm not specific and concrete, they don't really revise globally; when I do make those kinds of suggestions, I run the risk of doing the work for them, of seeing my suggestions spit back at me ... ) One key ingredient here is the role of peer critique. This year, particularly second semester, I feel I finally have a handle on this difficult task. Modeling is crucial-- the student must know what is expected, must see that peer critique is helpful in the preparation of the portfolio. Preparation of "crit sheets" helps here, as does making an explicit connection between the way I expect them to critique and the way I will eventually grade their texts. In conferencing and in mid-term evaluations, the single item mentioned as most helpful was peer critique.

First semester I think I graded rather high, unwilling to be "tough" in teaching a course which I had not fully defined for myself. Second semester I have been more demanding. Having seen the importance of all the diverse activities in Studio 1 to the total product, I am trying to convince my students of the need to take "class participation" as very important. My grading sheet, which I review with the class early on, and constantly hearken back to, serves as a continual reminder of this. Students must be convinced of the importance of their presence if the studio model is to work. Showing them that attendance and participation yields improvement in both the class and in their own writing is crucial.