Sunday, December 09, 2012

This Year, I SWEAR...

I'm teaching four class, four preps in the Spring Semester, which I have done, frankly, for so long that I don't think I'd know how to teach any other way at this point.

Still, this semester it will be a little rougher, because of the four classes -- Comp II, English Grammar, Woman's Lit, Writing the Novel -- two of them, those last two -- will be classes I have never taught before.

(Technically, I am teaching five classes, since I am also supervising an internship, but I don't expect that to be a ton of work, so I am optimistically not counting it.)

So!  I plan (for once I am planning and actually intending) to spend part of my between semester break actually doing some of the prep work for these two new classes.

I always intend to do this, mind you; and then I spend the entire break writing my novels.

But this year will be different!

Specifically I am going to spend part of every day figure out how to teach that Writing the Novel class.  Because I have written a great many novels, but I am not at all certain I know how to teach people how to write them.  Basically, my plan for writing novels goes like this.  (1) Get an idea  (2) Have some characters in mind (3) Start writing (4) write about 1000 words a day (5) keep writing (6) When you get to the end stop.

Which, um, surely I can be more helpful than that?

So I'm doing research.

The Women's Lit class -- ah, now, there I have lots of plans for.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess the problem is not so much how to teach it, but how to grade it. Could be some oil burning homework. --L

delagar said...

Heh, yeah. Writing workshop is always a ton of work!