I think the next five weeks will settle into a pattern as I figure out this whole teaching thing. The good: I got the technology working. I got to show the students the episode of My So-Called Life that I wanted them to see. I broke them up into groups and they started talking about it. And nothing was bad—but I think I’m confusing the students a little. Part of it is that I have to figure out common ground—not only between myself and them, but between the students themselves. They vary from 15 years to 18 years, and they come, as mentioned yesterday, from six different countries. I already know that in different cultures essay-writing is approached and structured differently, and so I’ve been talking about an argumentative essay and addressing it for the US context—but I think I need to start being more explicit.

I’m also trying to find texts/shows that open up a lot of questions—I think, for instance, there were questions in the episode of My So-Called Life (“The Substitute”) that were quite clear—and a couple of students mentioned how much they agreed with it. I don’t know if they’re reluctant to ask their own questions, or if they simply aren’t used to the kind of questioning I’m trying to elicit. So, on my part, I need to be more explicit.

After watching the episode, I was interested in the fact that the students went for the obvious “issue”: censorship. (The episode, for those in the dark, has a substitute teacher come in, use unorthodox methods to “wake up” the students, and the result is a class lit magazine with writing that’s submitted anonymously and reflects what’s really on students minds, rather than what they think they should write for a “literary” magazine. Inevitably there’s a piece that meets with objections from the principal and the lit is pulled: the protagonist, Angela, decides to go against school rules and reproduce and distribute it on her own. In the mean time we learn that the teacher who is a hero to a lot of the students is morally ambiguous—he himself has abandoned his family and failed to pay child support. There’s a lot of other stuff going on—and it’s the details that make it work instead of seeming a typical “issue-oriented” show—but that’s the basics.) I don’t think I was very clear with the writing I asked them to do after we finished watching it: but we didn’t have a lot of time after the 45 minutes or so of the episode. I broke the students up into groups of three and four, and first asked them to discuss the show in light of their reactions to the “theme,” but also (more) to the relationships portrayed—cross-generational and among the students. I then asked them to write a short response about one of these relationships. I was hoping we’d be able to move from the overview to some level (even a smidgen) of analysis. I’ve only looked very briefly, and I think they students did start to approach that analysis—I am pretty pleased with that.

There is a group of about three or four that don’t seem as engaged in the class. Out of eighteen (I realised this morning that the roster listed one student twice, so eighteen is the total) I suppose that’s not bad. And they’re not being disruptive, they’re doing the writing and handing things in. I am not sure if they just don’t want to be there, or if there’s a language barrier, or what is happening. I’m hoping to be able to draw them into the conversation. Still, I feel like a lot of the other students are responding.

We didn’t get enough time with the episode, and I want to return to it—I’m not sure if we should come straight back to it on Monday, or if we should take a few days to look at a lot of different representations of teens and then come back to a more sustained narrative. I’m leaning towards the latter—in part for technology reasons. I haven’t been able to get internet in the building I’ve been in this week, and I’ll be back for the final two weeks of the class. Next week, though, I know the building I’ll be teaching in has internet, and I want to go through some online material. I especially want to look at a series of movie trailers, from Rebel without a Cause through to this year's teen movies and look at both how they’re trying to attract/sell to a teen audience, but also how recognisable “types” crop up again and again.

I was talking to my lovely friend Maureen yesterday, and she talked about wanting to teach a class like mine that has enough time for you to mess up, figure out what went wrong, fix it a little while probably messing up something else and—finding what works, what doesn’t. I hope between this and the class that starts Monday I can start to get a feel for how much can be covered, what works with different age groups, what—doesn’t work.

I've also got to spend the next few days getting ahead on the Independence Day Project. Gosh! I will be keeping busy...