Thread: English Teachers

I'd like to get feedback from Christians who have taught or who are now teaching English classes.

This fall I'll begin my journey as a graduate TA working towards my MA in English with an emphasis in TESL. I'll be teaching English 101 at a university, and I'd like to hear any suggestions that you can offer for organizing the class.

Specifically, I'm curious to know what kinds of activities you've done and what your philosophy of education is. Did you start the class with journaling? Did you try to build a 'community' (group work) atmosphere or did you stick to lecturing? Did you have students research and give a short presentation on a topic? Something else?

I've been taught a lot of feminist/marxist/secularist theory on how to teach English, and I'd like to shake that stuff off. It would be good to get some advice from Christian educators.

Thanks,
Matthew

I've been taught a lot of feminist/marxist/secularist theory on how to teach English

I would like to hear about this if you don't mind. Didn't know there were such things.

I am not a teacher, but as a student I really enjoyed my English 101 class. It was actually taught by a Christian grad student who had done his undergrad at Calvin. I wish I could remember the format he used or had his syllabus...

One of my favorite activities was analyzing works as a class. I learned a lot about analysis by listening to my fellow students critique works. The instructor jumped into the discussion a lot and would ask students to explain their analysis and trace their thought process - this was great, because we learned to examine our presuppositions and then to question and critique those presuppositions.

Another assignment I loved was a paper we had to write critiquing an argument that was given in a work of literature. I wrote a paper critiquing Mr. Collins' proposal to Jane in Pride and Prejudice. One of my fellow students wrote a paper that evaluated one of Paul's missionary sermons.

Yet another really great aspect of the class was that we had several short papers that we wrote throughout the semester. They were on "fun" topics - for instance "What is the good life?" "What is your earliest memory? Why does it stand out to you?" "Discuss/Explain something you've learned during your first few weeks of college." The papers counted very little towards our grade, but he graded them very strictly. The result was that we got a lot of practice and great feedback, but our first few (poor) efforts didn't knock our grade down.

I think one of the things I really brought from his class was to think critically and to evaluate my own subject position. This was invaluable later in college. Also, he was merciless when it came to grammar - something which I appreciated then, but really appreciate now.

I know I'm not a teacher, but I hope that helps you as you plan. My freshman English class was probably one of the best classes I had during my entire college experience. To be quite honest, the critical thinking skills I learned in that class probably led to my becoming reformed.

Kathleen,
Thanks for your input!
I hope to incorporate something of a presuppositional approach in my teaching. Although I'll be working at a secular college I'll still be able to challenge the students thinking on a presuppositional level-- as your instructor did.
Can you give an example of how the literary analysis went during a typical classroom session? What was the dialog like?
(Someone needs to write a book entitled, "A Presuppositional Approach to Education")
; )
Thanks again.

Ewen,
I was just reading an article tonight that was handed out by one of my teachers. The article was about using "dialog journals" in class (a dialog journal is basically centered around a back-and-forth conversation between peers-- in response to a journal entry). Here's a snippet of the article:
"These journals highlight '[t]he feminist validation of personal experience [which] fits well with many composition theorists' focus on student experience as a necessary starting point (Macrorie) or legitimate focus (Murray) for writing"

So, feminists/secularists start with a student's experience as a necessary focal point. Not sure that I buy that. I think it's more important to start with God as the necessary starting point (not man). Of course, we need to understand where our students are coming from, but I'm not convinced that I ought to start with their experiences as the "necessary starting point" in instruction.

I'm still working through forming my philosophy of education and I'd like to be as biblically-based as I can. A lot of the classes that I've taken, which were geared towards helping future teachers to teach, took an approach that basically made the students out to be the teachers --they'll discover the truth and then it will be more meaningful to them.
My last teacher took a really hands-off approach which I found to be frustrating. When I'd ask a question about grammar she would see if another student could answer it for me or she would point me to a section out of the book to read. Sometimes the questions I had were simple and it would have been more useful (and meaningful) if she simply gave the answer, but her educational philosophy kept her from responding directly to my question.

Hope that answers your question and makes some sense.

Matthew

One of my favorite activities was analyzing works as a class. I learned a lot about analysis by listening to my fellow students critique works. The instructor jumped into the discussion a lot and would ask students to explain their analysis and trace their thought process - this was great, because we learned to examine our presuppositions and then to question and critique those presuppositions.

This is great. I am certainly no English teacher, nor much of an English student, but this is possibly the most valuable skill any person can learn in their school years. I would think that if you could use literary analysis and interpretation to teach fundamental aspects of critical thinking (checking for internal and external consistency, flow of argumentation, rightly representing the thoughts of an author, etc.), it would be a refreshing and helpful change for these students.

Yet another really great aspect of the class was that we had several short papers that we wrote throughout the semester. They were on "fun" topics - for instance "What is the good life?" "What is your earliest memory? Why does it stand out to you?" "Discuss/Explain something you've learned during your first few weeks of college." The papers counted very little towards our grade, but he graded them very strictly. The result was that we got a lot of practice and great feedback, but our first few (poor) efforts didn't knock our grade down.

I also think this is a great idea. Be forewarned that there are many party-poopers in classes where "frivolous" assignments like this are given, typically among the male population. Stick-in-the-muds like myself will roll their eyes, complain, and dismiss the importance of it.

You could address that by: 1) Telling the students in advance the purpose of the assignment - to let them see your high standards and get feedback before more significant assignments come....or 2) Make the topic at least tangentially related to some course material.

I'm not a teacher, but I would like to give my input. I would recommend that your students read the books, How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston. Adler's book discusses how to analyze what you read and Weston's book discusses how to compose and assess arguments. Weston's book also covers how to write argumentative essays.

Originally Posted by amishrockstar

I'd like to get feedback from Christians who have taught or who are now teaching English classes.

This fall I'll begin my journey as a graduate TA working towards my MA in English with an emphasis in TESL. I'll be teaching English 101 at a university, and I'd like to hear any suggestions that you can offer for organizing the class.

Specifically, I'm curious to know what kinds of activities you've done and what your philosophy of education is. Did you start the class with journaling? Did you try to build a 'community' (group work) atmosphere or did you stick to lecturing? Did you have students research and give a short presentation on a topic? Something else?

I've been taught a lot of feminist/marxist/secularist theory on how to teach English, and I'd like to shake that stuff off. It would be good to get some advice from Christian educators.

Thanks,
Matthew

Matthew,

I'm not an English teacher, I'm a math teacher. But what you might want to know is that teaching is not generally taught in many places. If you have *any* opportunity, I would highly suggest that you attend a 5 day workshop taught by APL associates. I've been through one, and I believe it is probably one of the best workshops on how to teach ever. It is not religious in any way shape or form, but it is the *only* workshop in which Saxon Math was praised as a template for teaching.

In any case, I would want to have gone to that workshop before I started teaching, but didn't have that choice. I use the techniques in class now though.

Machen's The Necessity of the Christian School might be somewhat helpful. More helpful, probably, would be Van Til's Essays on Christian Education, which may be out of print, but Alibris shows two copies availalbe at around $20 each.

Originally Posted by amishrockstar

Kathleen,
Thanks for your input!
I hope to incorporate something of a presuppositional approach in my teaching. Although I'll be working at a secular college I'll still be able to challenge the students thinking on a presuppositional level-- as your instructor did.
Can you give an example of how the literary analysis went during a typical classroom session? What was the dialog like?
(Someone needs to write a book entitled, "A Presuppositional Approach to Education")
; )
Thanks again.

Ewen,
I was just reading an article tonight that was handed out by one of my teachers. The article was about using "dialog journals" in class (a dialog journal is basically centered around a back-and-forth conversation between peers-- in response to a journal entry). Here's a snippet of the article:
"These journals highlight '[t]he feminist validation of personal experience [which] fits well with many composition theorists' focus on student experience as a necessary starting point (Macrorie) or legitimate focus (Murray) for writing"

So, feminists/secularists start with a student's experience as a necessary focal point. Not sure that I buy that. I think it's more important to start with God as the necessary starting point (not man). Of course, we need to understand where our students are coming from, but I'm not convinced that I ought to start with their experiences as the "necessary starting point" in instruction.

I'm still working through forming my philosophy of education and I'd like to be as biblically-based as I can. A lot of the classes that I've taken, which were geared towards helping future teachers to teach, took an approach that basically made the students out to be the teachers --they'll discover the truth and then it will be more meaningful to them.
My last teacher took a really hands-off approach which I found to be frustrating. When I'd ask a question about grammar she would see if another student could answer it for me or she would point me to a section out of the book to read. Sometimes the questions I had were simple and it would have been more useful (and meaningful) if she simply gave the answer, but her educational philosophy kept her from responding directly to my question.

Hope that answers your question and makes some sense.

Matthew

Ach, man; NO! The stuff mentioned above is rot. One of the greatest maladies in English education today is the 'starting with self' idea. If you 101 class is a grammar class make sure that you teach grammar: the parts of speech (I had honours students who could not identify even the most basic parts of speech), the rules of grammar, the use of grammar in rhetoric, etc. If your 101 class is a lit class (never heard of one), you have a great opportunity to weave in presuppositionalism. If it is a comp class, well what ever you do push the students to begin the writing process with the thought and the audience, not themselves.

Nihilism and Narcissism are destroying English education, and most education in general.

Thank you for all the responses!

I've checked out the books that were suggested, I contacted APL (though they aren't on the West coast yet), and I have a lot to think about from what's been written so far.

The 101 class that I'll be teaching is a comp. class. I've been thinking of using journaling at the beginning of class in order to get the students to find the thesis of an argument, offer what the opposing view might say, and to identify who the audience is of whichever prompt I give to them. "Ya," I want the class to center more around having the students understand their audience, thought processes, the thesis, parts of an argument, etc. etc. --not on their personal experience or looking within themselves to find the answers.

Thanks again for all your help,
Matthew

Remember you are teaching communications, English just happens to be the vehicle. Have them write short papers, one to three double spaced typed pages. Leave them room to write on what they’re interested in. Have students bring copies for everyone in class. Have the student read aloud his own paper, and critique each of these in terms of understandability, sentence structure, use of unnecessary words, the overall argument. Teach rewriting. Have them write five hundred words; then have them edit these to three hundred words, retaining the essential of what they said before. Teach them to eliminate confusing, unnecessary and qualifier words.

Kathleen,
Thanks for your input!
I hope to incorporate something of a presuppositional approach in my teaching. Although I'll be working at a secular college I'll still be able to challenge the students thinking on a presuppositional level-- as your instructor did.
Can you give an example of how the literary analysis went during a typical classroom session? What was the dialog like?
(Someone needs to write a book entitled, "A Presuppositional Approach to Education")
; )
Thanks again.

I am at work now, and can't comment at length, but I'll get back to you about this.

Also, as a side note, I was at a large secular state school - not a Christian college. It just so happened that my instructor had done his undergraduate work at Calvin - and if I'm not mistaken, he was probably a reformed Christian, although I wouldn't want to say for sure.

Does the college require second semester English composition? If it does, it might be helpful to see what that course requires so that you can prepare your students for that course.

Big second to Glenn and Curt. Since it is a comp class (I've never understood the seemingly new method of teaching comp before grammar. . .) have all your student's memorise Elements of Style!

Thanks again.

There's been a lot of good advice on this thread.

I'm starting to shake off the secularist/
feminist, student-centered approach to
education. Some of that stuff has an
appearance of wisdom, but it's not biblical
--it's humanistic at its core.

Today, when I woke up and checked
my email, I found an article that was
sent to all the new TA's by one of my
teachers. She said that the article is
"the kind of assignment you might want
to offer your students based on an idea
of multi-modal compositions with lots of
self-direction for the students."
It's seems like we're being taught to be
nothing more than facilitators since the
students are basically expected to teach
themselves.
I don't think I'll be reading that article
anytime soon. It's called, "Exploring
Post-critical Composition: MEmorials
for Afghanistan and the Lost Boys of
Sudan."

ME-morials?!?!
------
I don't want to simply lecture in my class
and I don't want to turn the class over to be
run by the students. I guess these are issues
that we will have to face in our current school
system where we have students (graduate)
teaching other students (undergrad).

Thanks again,
Matthew

Kathleen,
Thanks for your input!
I hope to incorporate something of a presuppositional approach in my teaching. Although I'll be working at a secular college I'll still be able to challenge the students thinking on a presuppositional level-- as your instructor did.
Can you give an example of how the literary analysis went during a typical classroom session? What was the dialog like?
(Someone needs to write a book entitled, "A Presuppositional Approach to Education")
; )
Thanks again.

So, generally what would happen during analysis is that we would have all read something before class. The instructor would open it up to students either by asking a specific question or asking for initial thoughts. Generally, he would open it to initial thoughts first and then either direct those thoughts or ask a question if we weren't going anywhere. When a student made a statement, he would often ask "Why do you think that? Why have you come to that conclusion?" Does anyone else agree or disagree? Why or why not?" By asking us why we thought a certain way or why we had a certain view, he was able to get at our presuppositions without being extremely obvious. He also made an effort to have students dialogue with each other as well as with him. As well, he didn't beat students up if they couldn't always answer why they thought something. If they couldn't answer or explain their reasoning, he let it go and turned to another student. I appreciated this - no need to embarrass the student. He did of course point out lapses in reasoning or explanation on our papers.

I remember one class in particular in which we analyzed "All You Need is Love," (the Beatles.) (We mostly analyzed text, but also did music and film. This was for everyone's benefit, but especially because we had some music and film majors in the class.). He asked for initial reactions. Then he asked, "What are they arguing here? What is this song saying?" Then he asked, "So, is love really all you need?" Another question he asked later was, "Is love always good?" I don't remember quite how we got to that question, but it was in response to something someone else said. He also emphasized logical and reasoned arguments. Everything you said needed to make sense.

I hope that answers your question. Good luck!

Hey Kathleen,
Thanks so much for posting that info!!
I plan on incorporating some of what
you said into my curriculum and class
discussions.

I have one more question...
Were the topics 'limited'?
I mean, were the students allowed to
argue for controversial issues such as
abortion, gun rights, or evolution?
I remember when I took 101, about
four years ago, we weren't allowed to
write an argumentative essay on the
above topics.

---------------------

Also, as a side note, since I'm going to
be an ESL teacher (long-term) I've been thinking
of ways to address language acquisition, cultural
differences, and other ESL related issues into
my 101 curriculum --not sure if that's going to
fly, but I do have about 2 months to think it over.
One thing that I'm thinking about doing is analyzing,
or rather comparing, English argumentative essays
to -possibly- Chinese argumentative essays or some
other culture's writing style. I know that the
argumentative essays are written quite differently
in China than they are here in the West, but that's
also something that I'm not too sure will make its
way into the class-- not sure how beneficial that
might be for analytical/teaching purposes.

Thanks again Kathleen (and everyone) for all your thoughts,
Matthew

We did not talk about controversial topics - something for which I am eternally thankful! Most of the other English 101 classes did talk about abortion, gun control, evolution etc. and (from what I heard) students became emotional, upset, and attacked each other. I think our professor's thought was that by honing our analytical skills on topics which were less emotional and political in nature that we would then apply those skills to more controversial topics. As well, I think he knew that it would be easier for quieter and more timid people to speak up and argue if they knew people wouldn't hate them for the side they took. The one exception was that our last assignment was to write a persuasive paper on a topic of our choice. Several people did write about controversial topics - stem cell research for instance - but several did not. I wrote about homeschooling, which was kind of a middle ground. Slightly controversial, but not an overly emotional topic.

My view is that it isn't necessarily bad to talk about some of these topics in class, but that you have to be careful. You don't want it to turn into a politics class and you don't want to scare the quieter/timid kids. I think its possible to teach argument without arguing over highly emotional topics - might even be easier to be honest!