First Day Teaching

This past Tuesday, I taught my first lesson at the college level. As part of the teaching of writing certificate that I will receive upon graduation in December, this semester I am taking a teaching internship, where I am essentially student teaching in a freshman composition course.

My lesson Tuesday was about sociologists' role in bringing social justice to their subjects (which is a subject that is touched upon in our text, Gang Leader for a Day). I led a successful discussion about this, and the students were fiery in their opinions. How lucky that my entire class is full of students in Roosevelt's acting/musical theatre program! It probably helped fire the students up when a cockroach scurried across the blackboard during my lesson. Yeck.

What did I learn? First of all, never tell the class that a worksheet they are doing in class will not be graded. They won't actually write anything down. Also, don't call students by the wrong name... they don't often like that.

All in all, it was a good day in the classroom. The students even clapped for me when I was done. I'll be teaching again a week from today, and this time it'll be all by myself... eeek!

L Stacks

[Photo: James Sarmiento]