I am sorry. I'm already being a bad blogger, and I dislike that about myself. I'm going to try to be better about this. I really am. Maybe I should set a goal, like one post a week? Wait, that's too few. Three a week? ...I don't know. I need to think about it. Oh, there is a video at the end of this blog post and I do not want you to look at it until it is relevant to the post. Ok?
Part of the reason I have't posted in this for a few day is because I'm trying to justify it's existence. what's worth including and what's worth leaving out. This is a Triple First blog. First year in graduate school, First year teaching First year composition. I don't want to write a blog about my day-to-day happenings and I don't want to give you the play-by-play of my class. That's boring to write and read. I don't want to pretend it's super fun or that I'm not anxious and exhausted about every aspect of this-- graduate school, teaching, moving to a new place, making new friends, et cetera. So, what do I say? Do I even say it at all? Who are you, Blog? I'm not sure I trust you.
But, anyway, for now I'll keep writing. Who knows where this will go or if anyone will ever read it.
Where has this week gone? Today it is nearly Sunday and the last time I wrote in this way Tuesday. That's out of control. I'm glad Monday is a holiday.
I think teaching has been my favorite part of this week. I don't really know how to articulate why. I don't know these students that well yet, but I think I like them. They seem to be talkative and willing to participate, which is great. On the first day we made up random questions to be part of a pile that everyone had to choose a question from. I'd made up a lot of the questions before class, but I left out five for us to come up with as a class. (Examples of the questions I wrote: If you were a piece of furniture, what would it be? If you were given an island, what would you name it? What's your best scar story? Tell us two truths and a lie) I read a few examples, then, after a little cajoling, they started coming up with their own. Questions they came up with: What's your most significant experience with frozen food (weird) What was your worst accident (other than car accident), What would your ideal fortune cookie fortune say? Kind of random and weird, right? So I was pretty psyched. Everyone had to randomly choose a question, say their name, major and hometown, and answer the question. Oh, and no looking at your question before it is your turn to answer! It was a really long and complicated "get-to-know-you" game, but I think it was good, and I think they had fun.
Wow, that was a lot of writing. I hope it wasn't boring.
Thursday was good too! We did a free write after a very involved conversation about what a free write is. I was like, "Free write, go!" And they were very frightened. So, we had a heart to heart about it, and then they were off!! I showed them a video of the slam poet Anis Mojgani (I don't have time to discuss my feelings about slam poetry, but Anis is sickkkk). I showed them the video of him preforming "Shake the Dust" at the 2006 Seattle Grand Slam. I showed it to them because I figured their first week of college had probably been pretty exhausting and emotional like mine. I asked who was overwhelmed/tired/anxious/whatever and everyone was some version of that. So I said, "Shake the dust!" And we watched Anis, then we wrote, then we shared. Yeah, shared! I didn't even have to threaten them or anything. They wanted to share. These guys could be rockstars.
Now you can watch the video. Shake the dust is at 6:25.
This post is clearly too long. I'm sorry. If I post more often they can be shorter more manageable posts. I'm also going to try to add pictures and video of different interesting things because I heard that makes blogs more appealing.
Over and out, bloggie blog.
-Claire
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