Pedagogy
English 695

Fall 2004
Tuesdays, 7 - 9:30 pm

 

Professor Alisse Portnoy
alisse@umich.edu

4172 Angell Hall
Department of English Language and Literature
University of Michigan
763-4279

 


This course is a required course for second-year Ph.D. students
in English Language and Literature and English and Women's Studies.


What does it mean to imagine--and to experience--teaching as a scholarly endeavor? When we do our “scholarly” work, we enter into discourse communities, familiarize ourselves with what scholars have researched and argued, and intervene in those conversations in educated, focused, and creative ways. We often get feedback from colleagues before we submit grant proposals, essays, and book manuscripts. We set goals for ourselves and we thoughtfully design research agendas and programs. We develop particular areas of expertise and share that expertise with increasing confidence. We reflect on and theorize our experiences. We spend time in grad school figuring out ways to best manage our time and balance our scholarship with--even integrate our scholarship into--other parts of our lives. Sometimes we struggle with Foucault, sometimes we figure out how to get from 2A North to 5 South at the Grad.

In this class, we’ll approach teaching as a scholarly endeavor, informed by competing and complementary pedagogical theories. We'll read and discuss some of the current scholarship on teaching and learning. A basic tenet of my own scholarship is that dichotomies between theory and practice frequently are artificial and can lead to banal work, so you can be sure that we’ll engage pedagogical theory concomitant with your own teaching--the collaborative work you’ll be doing with faculty in 2004-05, and the autonomous (though, paradoxically, still very collaborative) work you’ll be doing in English 124 or 125 beginning in the fall of 2005. By observing other teachers, by being observed in the classroom, and by sharing teaching experiences and documents such as assignments, graded papers, lesson plans, and classroom conversations, we'll engage in peer collaboration and critique. In the context of our own classrooms and courses, we’ll talk about strategies to encourage active learning; methods of classroom assessment and management; the ins and outs of evaluation; pedagogical resources; course, syllabi, and assignment design; time management techniques; your teaching and learning personae; relationships between you, your students, your senior colleagues, and the institution; the articulation and alignment of teaching goals and practices; and summative and formative evaluations of our own teaching.

In addition to regular and active participation in class discussions, I expect you to participate in the course in five other ways: readings, occasional weekly assignments, observations, explorations of pedagogy scholarship, and the preparation of a 124/125 syllabus.   There will be readings from First Day to Final Grade: A Graduate Student's Guide to Teaching, written by the department's own Anne Curzan and Lisa Damour, and brief readings posted online in PDF format throughout the semester.   First Day to Final Grade is available at Shaman Drum.   You'll need your uniqname and UMICH password to access the online readings.   Occasionally there will be short weekly assignments--for example, a sample lesson plan or response to a midsemester evaluation.   Usually these assignments will be due by Monday at noon so I can use them to prepare for our Tuesday night class.   You will observe an English 124 or 125 class and submit a description of the session, and I will observe one of your classes during the semester.   We'll talk more about means and ends for both observations in our class.  

So that we learn from people outside our circle and so that we become familiar with pedagogy scholarship, as a class we'll compile articles on university teaching as well as teaching in our discipline(s).   To that end, you'll submit to me one article on each of those two topics and a paragraph with each article about why you find the article interesting and valuable.   I'll provide you with a list of suggested journals, and I'll post these paragraphs and essays online at our class's website.   Finally, at the end of the semester you'll submit for a section of English 124 or 125 that you'd like to teach in Fall 2005 a course rationale, preliminary syllabus, and some plans for active learning and classroom assessment.   We'll talk lots about these topics between now and when this assignment is due.  

I'm happy to make accommodations for disabilities as necessary.   Please talk with me about these needs during the first two of weeks of the semester.   I'm also happy to meet with you throughout the semester about this class or your graduate work more broadly during my office hours or by appointment (I'm available for appointments on most Tuesdays and Thursdays).   The best way to contact me is by email.   I check at least once a day during the week, and I'm typically good about responding quickly.

 


Most recent update: August 3, 2004.
http://www.umich.edu/~alisse