On Courseblogs, Update II; or Tales of a Teaching Carny

Quickly: I hereby tag thee Teaching-Carnival.  On to the actual post:

For the second time this week, I fulfill a promise to post about a given topic; namely, my courseblog.  (Regular readers know what I'm talking about.  Those drawn here by the carnival can read my initial musings here.)  I've been meaning to talk about how this experiment proceeds, but life has intruded.  Now that I'm living it at its proper remove again, I have time enough to say that courseblogging works.  I'll discuss the benefits first, then share a few reservations.

Class prepartation

My old class preparation routine consisted of re-reading the essay I'd be teaching the next day and considering its place in the course. If I'd taught an article before, I'd look over my old notes to determine whether they're still germane.  If they were, I reaquainted myself with them; if they weren't, I worked up new notes. 

Now I sit down, open my laptop, look over my notes and determine what aspect of the essay could benefit from careful dissection.  For example, before teaching John McPhee's "Atchafalaya" on Monday, I spent Sunday morning piquing the students interest in his characteristically revealing metaphors. I did this despite knowing that I would spend the majority of Monday's class discussing his research methodology and structuring techniques. One blog post allowed me to accomplish two days worth of teaching in a single class period.  It also relieved the pressure we all feel to cover everything in a single period.  Of course, in addition to supplementing the assigned reading with extended discussion, I can also supplement the course itself with readings I didn't assign but think the students ought to read.  In addition to the extensive list of resources scrolling down my sidebar, I've also posted emails from Pulitzer Prize-winning on the subject of foreshadowing and exceptional works of literary journalism published that week, like an excerpt from Joan Didion's latest book or her 2002 profile of Martha Stewart.  (Lest you think the students don't read the supplementary material, here's a comment in which a student incorporates it into her argument.)

The Actual Class

Because I had analyzed McPhee's metaphors in a post they had already mulled over, I was able to discuss them with a much higher degree of sophistication.  The responses from the students were correspondingly higher.  Because we will be talking in more detail about literary journalists' special relationship with metaphorical writing, I didn't need to (nor did I) discuss McPhee's at great length.  However, in today's class the students brought up Susan Orlean's metaphors in "Lifelike" and compared them to McPhee's in "Atchafalaya."  That means when I address the subject formerly in Week 5, the students will already have been processing the subject in a sophisticated manner for four weeks.  The corresponding benefit is that when we have the formal discussion in Week 5, it will be far more informed by the reading they've already done than past classes have.  Why?

Because they've been processing the information in a structured manner for four weeks.  The "structured" bit's important, because unlike casual references to future topics of discussion during class, the blog post makes a particular point which--in conjunction with other discussions we'll have the next few weeks--trains the students to address the problem in a very particular way.  In other words, these supplemental blog posts both alleviate the guilt of insufficient coverage, they also accelerate the speed with which students acquire new concepts. 

The Students' Reactions

The courseblog also accomplishes something amazing: it keeps the course in the students' minds after they leave the class. I always do a post-class wrap-up in my head after class as I walk home or to my office: "What did I do well?  Poorly?  What did I forget to mention?  Did I exaggerate the importance of this or that?  Did I cut this student off?  Why didn't I call on that one more often?"  I think about my performance for an hour or so after each class.  Then I take down notes about what I don't feel I covered adequately, what I could've communicated better, &c.  I replay the class discussion and often find that I've said embarrassing things; some times on account of incorrectly understanding what a student said, others because I'm a blockhead or was trying not to derail my train of thought in order to make a particular point.  Now I can correct those mistakes almost instantly. Again, I save valuable class time but I also recall the student's attention the class discussion when they're not in class; furthermore, they can continue the conversation, with me, outside of class in a non-invasive or time-consuming fashion. 

For example, two students continued Friday's discussion; three more students continued today's.  The quality of the comments varies (both from student-to-student and from the standards a given student sets with earlier comments), but the quality matters less than the reinforcement sometimes.  (Students of mine reading this: I did not say the "quality doesn't matter."  I said "Quality notwithstanding, there are additional benefits to the process of commenting.")

More enheartening still is the sentence I now hear emanating from the mouths of my students on a daily basis: "As I wrote."  Three simple words, I know, but they're slowly acquiring a relationship to their writing akin to the one we have.  No longer a representation of their thoughts, their writing is now an extension of them.  They think about what we discuss both in terms of what they think right then-and-there in the present moment and what they thought earlier.  They're becoming little hermeneuts.  They say things like, "I know I wrote that X works like Y, but now that we're discussing Z, I don't think that's the case."  Then they sit back, think about X in terms of Y and Z, and a couple hours later they'll write a response. They may not have been thinking about it consistently during the intervening, but they thought about it enough to feel compelled to write about it when they returned home.

If you clicked on the previous link, you'll notice that that student refers to another student in the class by name. Not only does she know her classmate's name, but she's associated her classmate's position with it.  This reflects the fact that getting this class to talk isn't like pulling teeth.  They've become comfortable speaking in front of each other more quickly than any I've taught before.  This is partly because they've gotten to know each other through their writing earlier than normal, but it's partly because they all feel ownership of this thing we call in class "our courseblog."  "I wrote a note about it on our blog," a student will say.  This blog belongs to them as much as me; they know they're free to post on it whenever they please, and so far no one's written anything inappropriate.  (That may be more of an issue in a class larger than mine.  I currently have 17 students enrolled, so no one's anonymous.)

Some Reservations

One of my weaknesses as a teacher is that I talk far too much.  When they should be discussing something, teasing some point from some text, I'm usually running my mouth.  I try very hard not to dominate the classroom, but I often fail.  Similarly, I have to resist the urge to clog the blog with repsonses to student comments and student's repsonses to my responses to their initial comments.  I want them to feel free to think aloud, as it were, without fear that I'll come in, stamp my foot and mouth the definitive word on whatever it is they're thinking through.  (Sometimes they want me to respond, but sometimes I don't even respond then, instead saving my response for the next session.)  Of course I read all their comments, and I think they know this, but I could see two things happening that might discourage them from participating fully:

1. I respond to everything, at length, and overwhelm the blog the way I often overwhelm the classroom.
2. I don't respond to everything and offend students who can't fathom why I respond to some comments but not others. 

To my knowledge, neither situation has arisen yet.  But I can foresee one or the other happening at least once before the end of the quarter.

Note: I reserve the right to update this post at great length.