I teach General Education in Literature and Rhetoric. Many of my students come in believing that they can’t ‘do English’ because they simply don’t have the skills. The first semester I taught GEL, a student told me they were too stupid to write well. I aim to combat this sentiment and was able to help the student write a fantastic paper on the bond between blood and marriage in Dracula. After that semester, I received the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award and after my second year of Rhetoric, I received the Doug Trank Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. I create confidence in my students by emphasizing the validity and quality of their interpretations and making them cocreators in the classroom.
In class, we draw connections between their lives and course readings to increase their comfort. I often assign medieval texts, which can be difficult for students who have limited experience with the history, genres, and language. Students have noted our texts’ universal themes as well as more personal connections, like how Beowulf is stopped upon entering Denmark, which a student compared to being stopped at the airport. In assignments, students continue to draw connections. A business major wrote a paper about the leadership lessons they’d learned from Beowulf. I also guide students in a discussion of how the alt-right uses Beowulf to support white nationalism, a lesson plan that I published in Arthuriana’s So What? journal. These connections help students understand the text and see their continued relevance.
One of my favorite discussion activities is designed to center students’ interpretive abilities and the importance of responding to their peers. Students write questions to the day’s reading in advance, which I print out for the students. They then reflect on the questions in small groups to generate ideas. I then tell students it’s now their job to direct discussion and they should feel free to present multiple interpretations and disagree, respectfully, with their peers. I give them a stuffed whale to toss around the room. While the students discuss, quoting the text and responding to their peers, I write their main points on the board under their name and draw physical connections between students’ ideas. This activity improves their ability to think through difficult moments in the text, not only through their own engagement, but by listening and responding to their peers. The whale brings a fun and active element into the discussion, and it helps students who feel uncomfortable speaking up unprompted in the conversation. At the end of the discussion, I synthesize their ideas, provide historical context, emphasize important passages, and note the different interpretations. A student wrote in evaluations, “She prioritized discussion and the emergence of new ideas rather than just preaching the course to us.”
I ask students to be cocreators in the final assignment, where they design their own projects. This signals to students that their interests and excitement are important and relevant to our class material. In order to avoid error and to make the assignment intuitive, I provide examples, a short list of requirements, and a class period dedicated to designing their projects. During this class period, I direct students through a series of questions that help them determine a topic, their research, and the medium of their project. Students move through cycles of brainstorming ideas, sharing with peers, and reflecting on their own in order to make a final decision. Students have drawn connections to their majors, draw personal connections, and learned new skills. A finance major researched the economics of knighthood, a film major wrote a screenplay for Beowulf,one student compared their relationship with queerness to Fun Home, and another learned how to use media editing software.
In my second year, I began working on a Certificate in College Teaching and with the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning to design and implement a research study in my classroom on the impact of alternative assessment. As a Graduate Teaching Fellow, I drafted an article about the research I had done in my classroom, which was published in Faculty Focus. I have also worked with the Center for Teaching to do university-wide workshops about alternative assessment. From this research and in completing my certificate, I have developed clearer rubrics and participation guidelines, more transparent course goals, and more motivating grading schemes. One student wrote in evaluations, “She is very kind and understanding when life sometimes gets in the way of assignments, and she worked with me to ensure I was in good standing with the class.”
In my classroom, I help my students build comfort and confidence in their reading abilities, their interpretation skills, and in themselves as learners. As I have implemented these strategies, students’ discussion and projects have become increasingly more thoughtful and engaged. In evaluations, students note the classrooms’ friendly environment, the clarity of assignments, and my willingness to work with them.