Tutors in 130 classes:
Shay, if you can post some notes on what you take to be Stuart’s priorities in 130, please do. You don’t have to take much time with this. Just four minutes. (Maybe you could categorize your posting under “teachers.”) And Stuart, of course you will have the benefit of adding things, in a comment to Shay’s posting.
If postings about a 130 professor’s priorities are appropriate for anyone else, I would urge others to do it too. D’Marco, if you have attended any of Stuart’s classes, you can make notes of any insights you have. And Megan, if you have anything new on Yardley’s class. Others: please read each other’s postings.
Noel, I just emailed you about Jordan Leff’s class. I still have to talk to him in person; I have not seen him in a week-and-a-half.
All,
Barry suggested that we who are sitting in on classes make a few notes about what we perceive to be the instructor’s priorities. I have been assigned to Shawn Yardley’s 10:00 Tuesday/Thursday class. So far, she seems to emphasize:
1. Students understanding what they read.
This seems like a skill that needs improving in almost everyone I see at TWC. She spent some time today going through definitions of words in a story the class read, which was a good thing, because several students were quite confident they knew the definition of a word and were completely wrong, e.g. “serene” means “very confused,” “leering” means “to stalk,” etc.
2. Students understanding how other writers accomplish what they do.
Sort of, “Why is this funny/sad/moving/ridiculous? What did the author do to achieve this effect?” So I guess this might be a question we could ask students.
However, I think most of us would agree that it is often enough of a struggle to sort through the “to, too,” and “two”s and “your/you’re”s to get something that is at least approaching coherency, that exploring writer motivations and the minutia of word choices is sort of a luxury.
I’m not going to get the rant pants on here about that last one, everyone else feel free.
Technical note: I’m going to try to set up separate users on here, so we don’t have to sign our posts, but until then, sign your posts, y’all.
Megan
