Progress at the Midterm: Special Instructors’ Edition (April 5, 2024) 

A familiar PD session at the midpoint of the semester is one on ways to use reflection and a variety of measures to help students gain a sense of their progress in their writing course.  But writing instructors, likewise, have a need to step back and reflect on how they are doing according to the teaching goals they set for themselves, whether it may be for trying out new approaches or reaching toward exciting, more epistemological, teaching frameworks. 

To commend and support these aspirations, the familiar “progress at the midterm” PD session turned toward instructors’ own sharing and reflection on their progress at the midpoint. How was it going, we asked, with that goal or aspiration that you’ve been centering in your teaching this semester? Instructors shared goals, including: increase turnaround time for feedback (Stephanie); use class time more efficiently and creatively (Heather); incorporate technology better (Laura); strengthen the “care” element of teaching (Laura); and integrate more of the instructor’s personal and academic interests into teaching to make their teaching more dynamic (Joe). 

While these goals were essentially shared as questions, it was clear that instructors had been working on them as focuses already having an impact.  The goal of “us[ing] class time more efficiently” grabbed our attention for quite a while, since what we do during class is actually the core of connecting with students, scaffolding assignments, revealing ourselves and our special interests to students, and so much more. As an instructor with an expertise in journalism, Heather felt encouraged to bring the exercises and awarenesses of community observation to the classroom, as something uniquely emanating from the instructor’s background. Connecting to the goal of “integrat[ing] more of the instructor’s personal and academic interests into teaching,” we noted that when students learn of their instructor’s distinct and valuable interests, the classroom feels more special and geared to them.  Hope spoke of her original training in teaching writing as a teacher in a grade school where graduate education students and teacher trainers from Teachers College Writing Project regularly visited. From this experience come many “write like real writers” strategies and approaches that can be tailored for the “writer’s workshop” of English composition. So while these approaches may feel off the page of what’s typically done during class time in an ENG12 or ENG24 course, they can all be seen to use class time “efficiently and creatively” and connect to the “personal and academic interests” of the instructor. 

Another way we conceived of professional goals and aspirations this semester was to think backwards—from a moment that exemplified what the goal was. Joe related a student arriving before class started one day, intent on capturing some one-on-one time with the instructor. Couldn’t it have been “this other factor” that drove Esther in The Bell Jar? The student had been wondering since the previous class. In fact the student could not wait to raise the question until the beginning of class. Another faculty in the room, actually there to observe the class, was impressed: How had the instructor created such carry-over and interest? Yet another participant, Laura, shared that the epitome for walking backwards from a goal stemmed from the recent winter model, when she took time to really check in on students who missed even one class, sending emails of concern and  attachments of missed work. This focus on care was influencing the current semester as well, through the instructor’s set up of Google student folders that now function as a conveyance of classroom community. Referring to and building these folders tells students we all have a stake in creating something tangible and worthy. We all belong. 

This approach related to Hope’s aspiration for a tangible place, on Blackboard, where students can reliably access the classwork of any class that they are absent for as a way to always be connected to the course. 

Again, so much of the discussion kept circling back to class time as the large creative space for actualizing teacher presence and community.  To recap Stephanie’s goal for speedier feedback, we noted that regularly making individuals’ feedback the center point of whole class discussion is feedback to all (For example, “Here’s the letter of comments I wrote for Samar. What seems prioritized in my feedback to Samar? How do these comments apply to goals of ENG12, or to you?”). At the same time, the threads of rapport become more visible. Class time becomes all these windows into how and what students are doing in their writing; the words and feedback they are receiving back; and conversation “about” writing. In this kind of sharing, there’s also more room for instructors to reveal themselves, their interests, and their own writing process and evolution.  In all, this PD session fostered many connections worthy of our aspiring.