What I Am Doing In The Spring Of 2014

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the new semester is that I am teaching two new courses. Masterpieces of World Literature II meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Women In Literature meets on Thursdays only, but over on our Pemberton campus, which means I have to travel between campuses. So a few of my colleagues could teach new classes as well, I was willing to do that for this semester as they have in the past.

I am also teaching my normal assortment of composition courses. I am doing a bit on an overhaul on Composition II and may blog about that as time goes on.

EOffice hours are Wednesdays at 8pm to 9pm. I will be available on Skype and a few IM apps.

Here at BCC we will be doing ThatCamp Community College at the end of March. I am really looking forward to this and the committee I have been working with has been great.

I will be heading down to Stockton in April for the annual Lit/Lang Bash. I am hoping to meet up with some of our BCC alumni that day as well.

I can also announce that I will be giving a paper at Buffy To Batgirl: Women & Gender In Science Fiction, Fantasy and Comics at Rutgers in May.

Summer 2007 Papers

In the summer of 2007 I took a seminar on Victorian literature. I wrote two papers of note which included a writeup on the introduction to Miriam Elizabeth Burstein's book Narrating Women's History In Britain: 1770-1902. This is a clever assignment I am using with my students this semester as well.

The second was my seminar paper, which discussed queerness in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's novel Lady Audley's Secret and whether the ending of the novel is "straight" or not.

How My Students Helped Me Look For Grammar Clues During The Fall Semester

A rather successful endeavor in the fall semester was looking to add a "look for clues" slide to my grammar slide sets for Composition I. Some of my slide sets had a slide like this already, but others did not so I decided to make it a point of emphasis for the fall semester. With the help of my two sections of Composition I, I was able to add a list of clues for the remaining sets that did not have them. Sometimes this came directly from a student question during group work or discussion and sometimes it came directly from me. I am grateful for my students and their assistance in getting this done.

Engaging Learners In The 21st Century: Service Learning In The Classroom-Integrating Community Service Into Existing Curriculum

My colleagues Erica Franklin and Erika Baldt gave an excellent presentation at Engaging Learners In The 21st Century which rounded out our day at the conference. I took some notes that day, but a lot of this comes from Erica's slide set which she graciously sent me.

  • Service learning combines community service with course material and/or interests
  • It develops academic skills and a commitment to working with the community
  • Service should have correlation to course content, outcomes, etc
  • Flexibility
  • Hands on experience
  • Resume building and networking
  • Examples of service learning at BCC include Civility Week, Sleep Out For Homelessness, and efforts after Superstorm Sandy
  • Many benefits for an institution including partnerships, resource sharing, public relations, and strengthening alumni ties
  • Grammar discussion with middle school
    • Build posters with them about grammar errors in a program
  • Teaches graphic design and hireable skills for non teaching English majors

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