After class today I was talking excitedly with my friend Lauren about the class I taught today. Lauren has just graduated from the English Masters program and is teaching in a reading program at the moment. She took Randy Bass’s class “Approaches to Teaching Writing” the year before me, and so we ended up discussing teaching (it really is all that’s on my mind at the moment…) and learning.

During the course of talking Lauren said, “It’s usually the classes you don’t do as well in that you learn the most from.” (Or something like it.) I’m not saying that’s true for everyone—and when something really engages someone, it’s often the case that they do better. But I’m a bit slow really. So—the classes where I’ve gotten an A minus instead of an A tend to be the ones where there’s been enough complexity in the material or approach that I am not finished with it by the time I hand in my final paper. I’m fine with this—I realised quite a long time ago now that I can’t synthesize all this material quickly. I work intuitively, and sniff out connections—and that happens slowly. The reason I mention this at all (in, yes, a convoluted fashion that might also function as a confession—I figure things out in my own time… unfortunately that doesn’t always match semester deadlines) is that I feel like now, both in and out of the classroom, I’m making all the connections I began to learn about in “Approaches to Teaching Writing.” For the first month or two of that class, though, I was mystified—I was adjusting to America, I’d never really heard anyone discuss pedagogy, and I hadn’t even figured out yet that there are different conventions for writing an academic paper in America as opposed to Australia. Now I feel like it’s all starting to become clear. After a few days of seeing things changing in front of my eyes I’m excited to go into the classroom. I feel like teaching is something I could be good at, could really enjoy.

Anyway, another class today: minus a couple of students (one was sick… the other I’m not sure about, though he emailed me a paper.) And, a new student. So, when everyone shows up I’ll have six. That seems like a really nice number—that we can do a lot of really productive work as a whole class.

Today three students brought in work to the whole class. (I had hoped this would be all five.) I asked them to email me a one page response to The West Wing, and I brought copies to the class. We started with a general conversation about the episode, and went into the papers. Each student read their paper aloud and we discussed them—located the central questions, the thesis statements. Discussed transitions, where ideas didn’t seem one hundred percent unified… The students were so supportive at the same time as being critical. And they each got a round of applause after we discussed their paper. Each of them had already done in this second response what I had hoped the students would be able to do at the end of five weeks: they had gone past the “character” stage of reading, and begun to investigate what was represented. Each of them had located a potential point of difficulty, and asked a question that had no definitive answer. Some had started to work toward an answer—I’d let them know this wasn’t a primary goal for me until they wrote a longer paper. The critical question was enough—but still, some were on their way to the next stage. Honestly, I was so impressed. I feel like they’ve travelled as writers in only a couple of days—I feel like talking about writing for audience and writing conventions are one of the most helpful things. When I’ve talked with students in Liberal Studies, this has helped them too. In a sense, now the subject matter can take an equal footing with the writing, and we can look at both aspects really critically because I don’t feel like I have to nitpick through the nuts and bolts. They’ve all demonstrated they can think and they can respond to each other’s writing. After discussion all the students were able to discuss what they would work on to move this particular piece to the next level as a piece of writing—so, another goal (understanding writing as a process) enters the frame. The fun begins.

Incidentally—I think I mentioned that I wasn’t sure what teaching The West Wing would be like. I think they really took to it—and that the fact of having young adult characters in an adult drama, contributing ideas, was something that really appealed to them. A few asked more questions about the series as a whole, and were interesting in watching more.

Oh, and I thought I would post the links to the movie trailers I used in that exercise. (I also let my afternoon students know that that was coming up in a week or so…) I found it really productive—seeing patterns, looking at the “form” of the movie trailer over 50 years, especially trailers for the audience of teenagers, getting a context to view current trailers critically.

So, here’s a lovely list. I didn’t get time to use them all, but whether it’s for your own sake or because you think there’s some chance you might ever teach movie trailers, I personally think they’re interesting. But then, I think most things are interesting. Common themes? Cars. Romance. Sports. Rock'n'roll. Generational conflict. Rebellion. Gosh! How surprising!

Some teen trailers:

Rebel without a Cause (1955)
Gidget (1959)
American Graffiti (1973)
Grease (1978)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
The Karate Kid (1984)
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Teenwolf (1985)
Pretty in Pink (1986)
The Chocolate War (1988)
Say Anything (1989)
Dead Poets' Society (1989)
Heathers (1989)
Flirting (1991)
Clueless (1995)
Romeo and Juliet (1996)
Varsity Blues (1999)
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Save the Last Dance (2001)
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Crazy/Beautiful (2001)
Igby Goes Down (2002)
Mean Girls (2004)
Step Up (2006)
Charlie Bartlett (2007)