Antonio Hamilton
ADVENTURES OF BOOT CAMP: an ePortfolio
In a summer like no other, with the sun beaming from a distance, Antham began his journey to becoming a TA. We proudly present...
Over the last six weeks of this course and internship I feel like I have learned a lot of valuable information that has prepared me to begin teaching this fall. The amount theory, application, and firsthand experience help shape how I view structuring my class and the goals I wish my students to achieve. Reiff’s article “Moving Writer…A Genre Approach” had the biggest impact on me because it discusses the importance of having the genres we are teaching in class be relatable to the studies. This will inspire (or so I hope) students to willfully engage because it will be more than just some nonapplicable thing that they are learning. I think that relating genres to relevant subject matters such as pop culture shows that genres/English is something they interact with every day is the first step in showing these students the value of English. Beyond this type of introduction, I believe that they will notice that everything has its own respective genres, including their field’s study. Also, Reiff touches on how understanding genres will lead students to understand the rhetorical audience. This was an important turn around for me because looking at freshman English composition courses, I did not really see why the freshman English class here was structured in this meticulous way. But reading articles like Reiff made me see why freshman English composition is set up in this way, and the usefulness of it when considering how most of these students probably were not properly prepared by their high school English classes. This made me look back at my writing and analyze how genres has affected my learning which helps when you are trying to be an example of how genres have effected your own writing. But ultimately, at the end of Reiff’s article I got the feeling that genres are the best approach because a lot of the information about it, is stuff they already know, but they do not know they know it.
Being this teacher, you take this undefined knowledge that they have and connect it to an established school of thought. The approach about how to go about this is probably what I found one the most valuable aspects of this class to be. Doing the internship and then to have TAs who are or have been teaching come into our classroom and talk about the different ways they teach, was so invaluable. I think that those of us who have not taught before, know what we did or did not like about teachers we had and how we would do different than they did; or know that we have a certain type of personality that we think we might have to change for teaching. But having these teachers come in and display their wide ranges of personality amongst them, showed me how you do not have to conform to a certain type of teaching personality. This may sound like I am stating the obvious, but I believe that subconsciously we unknowingly alter ourselves in certain situations when we do not necessarily have to. So, seeing that amongst our guest speakers in class was enlightening. And being able see firsthand in our internships a one approach to teaching and the style of our mentor, was very important for us do. I think that a lot of the times we get stuck in our modes of teaching (not saying that this is a bad thing) because we may not be exposed to something different. The internship gave us an opportunity to see a different style that we may not have tried, that we may like to incorporate into our classes.
Ultimately, after looking at all the different ways of teaching, from content to style, I think one of the biggest takeaways for me is that it is alright to mess up. I know that sometimes I tend to be a little of a perfectionist and want to plan out for every situation possible, always making sure that I am prepared. But the reality of listening to my mentor and other TAs is that it is not possible and that there are times where you will mess up and it is fine to acknowledge that to your class. This establishes a related aspect and lets your students know that you may not have all the answers and that this is a learning experience for you as well as them. It is that collaborative nature of teaching that I think this brings forth, creating a give-and-take relationship between the student and teacher that operates both ways.
