Catch Up

Seems we've hit it -- that mid-term period when students slow down and look glazed and I feel like I am just on the verge of falling behind (evidence: catching up on this blog on my "furlough day"). Funny thing I've noticed about my class -- we have a nice rapport when we get going but on Tuesdays I feel them transporting their "us" versus teacher frame until we re-break the ice.

Here's what's been going on:

Tuesday:
"How to Tame a Wild Tongue" -- a teaching favorite of mine. Started with a quickwrite -- QW: Describe your reaction to this essay. What was the experience of reading it like? What struck you as significant? Where would you want to start our conversation?

As always, I wrote the qw with them -- it both helps me engage with the text (get my head in the game) and models what I ask them to do.

The entire class conversation spun off of their responses that I solicited after we wrote. I posed one particular question during our conversation: How is language tied to identity? Why is this important?

I was very moved in the class by two women who spoke about the experience of reading this text -- the first thing they've ever read that was addressed particularly to *them*.

The discussion diverged into lots of talk about experience, about men and women and the word "bitch" -- productive associations I think.

There was the dismay from non-Spanish readers that I have found is typical when teaching this piece. We got to the point of agreeing that there is a project at work with asking readers from dominant Am culture to experience outsiderness in this essay, but the students who were upset about being outside didn't seem to understand why I thought this was an exciting experience for usually-privileged readers; they were happy to stop with feeling alienated. It was at this moment when I saw how my own comfort with displacement, ambiguity, etc is so informed by theory -- theory has really affected my life.

Anyway, we ended the class by talking about the politics of language and community in the US context.

Thursday:

1st got class business out of the way; then did a version of Josh's peer workshop, which went swimmingly. Ended by discussing "Entering the Serpent." Funny: one of the key talkers started the conversation by suggesting there was a sexual undertone to the piece, but she hedged this assertion. I made them snigger by reading out the opening paragraphs and redescribing what she is describing -- yeah, it's sexual. Asked, why? How does this relate to the other things going on in the essay? It was a fine discussion although we could have used more time.