Teaching Strands

Hello, thank you for visiting my Relfection on Teaching Strands.



ENC1101 (Strand V):

Although I love the sociological/ethnographic leanings of strand 3 and 4 (which both trace and investigate communities), I want to make sure the strand that I end up utilizing will be an accessible method for me to begin teaching at FSU. With this in mind, strand V seems the most applicable to both my personality and current strengths. I love that the assignments start with the more personal which is often an easier subject for students to write about. I like the idea of first breaking students out of a certain mode of thought through the first assignment which utilizes “crots” and getting students used to writing outside of a five paragraph essay. The strand seamlessly then scaffolds from the personal to a more objective researched writing assignment, yet the second-to-last project still hinges explicitly on a personal narrative or interest. Of course, even a more traditional research paper should be on a subject that a student is passionate about, but the format of this essay allows for students to explicitly tie in their own experiences while still utilizing outside sources and research. The radical revision as a final project to me seems like an enjoyable method to get students ready for ENC2135’s genre and remediation focus while still rigorous in its focus.

ENC2135 (Strand V):

Once again, passing over the more sociological strands II and III in favor of one that could play to my strengths as a new instructor, I would like to teach strand V for ENC 2135. It is one that incorporates students’ interests and is fairly broad in scope, especially when compared to say the pop culture focus of strand VI or digital spaces analysis in strand IV. I like how the first assignment asks the student what their expertise is and allows them to share this. As with most of the other strands, the second project allows them to expand on a topic they are passionate about and write a research paper that incorporates and synthesizes sources. From there, the students remediate or remix the topic into three other genres. Though the instructor I interned with had a fairly specific focus of film as the subject of the course, sans the first project, he seemed to have utilized many aspects of this strand in his plans, and I therefore saw how effective it could be in practice. The strand seems unified and every project within it allows the student to make fairly open-ended and evaluative decisions as to what they want to write about and research.