Starting the Semester

Last week, the new semester began. With it came the usual slew of new responsibilities and projects that pop up in transition periods. I think I've previously complained about the lack of planning leading up to the semester - not only did classes start last week, but from my perspective, so did administrative business. The first week of class is not really the first week of class. The first week of class is for figuring out what is going on.

This means that just because you think you have class in a certain room, doesn't mean that no other instructors think they have class in the same room at the same time. Just because you think you have the same group of students every week for the semester doesn't mean that the students think they have you every week. And when you only have students one day a week, every other week, missing the first week of class seriously affects the semester.

With all of this in mind, I should have forfeited my organizational tendencies to the norm and left the semester break as a break. Yet I decided to take the time to plan my courses. And that was a mistake as I've now confused the students with all the changes as I had to make to the schedule in response to all the changes with our classes.

But, everything is going to be alright.

This semester I have two really great classes. I'm teaching both to the same students - two groups of American Studies first years. One is a Communication Techniques course, Effective English Writing. In this class we're starting off with boring things like mechanics and punctuation, then moving on to more exciting things like clarity and rewriting, and focusing on different types of non-fiction composition. The students have to write a few drafts of three essays: one autobiographical, one a critique of a news article about Romania, and one with a little choice. I keep telling them that writing is not easy, but serious business, and I think they are starting to believe me.

The other class is a seminar for Discourse of American Media. Let me explain first: the classes are either a practical course (like Comm. Techniques), a course (basically a lecture class, with many students), or a seminar (basically a discussion group, with half the students). So I'm teaching the seminar and a professor is teaching the course. She is giving them an overview of the American press throughout history, talking about the changing form and content, and especially focusing on the language used by the press. I am making them watch TV shows and listen to radio, read some online newspapers and magazines. In the seminar we're asking: How do American media portrayals affect different groups in American society? Since we only have 6 more meetings this semester, we're focusing on different types of groups for each week. We're looking at political groups, interest groups (a broad term which includes anyone trying to effect change in society, not just through politics, including social movements), religious groups, and professional groups (meant to let students find portrayals of everyone from military groups to bureaucrats to educators to artists).

The students seem to be open to more responsibility this semester. They are asking their professors what material they'll be tested on and what the format of exams will be, how they'll be graded and how they can make up for missed classes. I'm glad to see that - I think that since they made it through their first semester, they have a better idea of what's going on, and luckily seem to have enjoyed their first semester enough to be excited about what's coming next.