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Hi Ann, Chris and I had a chance to discuss our Inkshed proposal over the holidays. Here's where we are now. First, Chris says he will be able to rearrange his life in order to attend the entire conference, so we could present at any time. We have revised our original idea somewhat. Now we would still plan to begin with some inkshedding in response to the following prompt: When you first began teaching, what were your goals for the class and your values in terms of the subject/students? Where did you get these goals and values? Instead of a three-act presentaion, we now propose to carryon a dialogue. Chris would prefer not to read from a finished script, but iam more inclined to have a quite structured piece. Your input here would be very helpful. We could, of course, fit our presentation to the time allotted. Here's a rough outline of what we have so far. We are in communication via e-mail, and Chris will be home for a week in April, so we can finalize our presentation then. C: So what did you do in the war, Mom? When you began teaching, what were your goals and values? B: Goals? To prove to the students that I was smarter than they were. C: B: Values? Well, I taught three sections of freshman english at Memorial. The course was designed and administered by someone else. I didn't give much thought to values, only to being unnnoticed in case of complaints. I was, however, surprised to discover that I had modelled my teaching style on that of one of my profs at Trinity who asked questions and waited for answers rather than telling us everything. I found it frustrating as a student, but that's what I did as a teacher. C: Ah! funny you should say that (relates similar experience with poetics course and advice from mature student) B: I didn't see it as being tough; I guess I saw it as valuing the students' response and validating their ideas. Mybe I did have values after all. C: did you ask students questions directly? Did you single them out with specfic questions? What did you do when someone couldn't or wouldn't respond? B: Ouch! A painful memory is of saying to a student "I'm afraid you don't understand the poem" then later, having forgoten my comment, asking her a question to which she replied "I'm afraid...." Well, you can guess the rest. C: OK, so everyone knows how bad you (we) were, how have we improved? What are our goals and values now? B:Well, I'm in a completely different space, a community college rather than a university teaching language rather than literature concerned more with process than product. (Elaboration possible if necessary) I hope I value students more as people now even though I see myself as more of the expert in the classroom. What I need now are ways to keep it all fresh for me. C: It's still fresh for me -- too fresh sometimes. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. In the poetics course I taught last fall I had lots of values and few specific goals. I wanted to incorporate a feminist/political critique, but my assumption that the students would share my values was not borne out by my experience. My only substantial goal was to not run afoul of department regulations. We want to conclude by asking: What would you like you goals and values to be? NB Since I have been the recorder, so far there's more of me, but we will have more balance in the final version. What do you think? Will it fly? feedback is welcome! Happy new year. Betty and Chris Holmes [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] Ann Beer wrote: > Hello Betty. It is so good to hear from you, and especially to hear > from you with what sounds like a unique presentation! As these are > early days we do not yet know about how much time could be given for > your workshop, but certainly it seems a perfect one to include. Please > keep us posted as you and Chris develop the idea. I am forwarding this > to Jane who may want to add comments too. > > Best for now Ann