Greetings students! This blog, 209fall17.wccwriting.com, is our class “mother blog” in the way the most gigantic ship in an alien invasion movie is the “mother ship.” Our mother blog, once your individual blogs have been set up, will magically scan for all of your individual blog entries and repost them here. You can preview how this will work by checking out a mother blog of my English 100 students from last semester: http://100spring2017.wccwriting.com/
In this first post, in addition to giving you a preview of what the mother blog will do, I’ll answer some of the questions students frequently ask me at the beginning of each semester. When you think of a question not answered below, please ask me so I can add it to the list.
How did you get interested in teaching?
As best I can recall I was interested in teaching even when I was in high school. I’m pretty sure I wrote about wanting to be a teacher or doctor in my college essays. Luckily, I’ve had many great and inspiring teachers. As an educator, and especially a community college professor, I always have something meaningful and interesting to work on, and a great variety of students and colleagues to work with.
Do you allow bathroom breaks?
Surely! Please get up whenever you need to and go to the bathroom. Since texting in front of everyone is distracting, please also feel free to leave the room to send or read text messages.
What is the most we’ll have to write and how often?
The longest writing assignment in this class is the group research project, which all together should add up to at least fifteen pages. You’ll be working on the project in a group, so the total amount of writing you do for the project will vary by group size and how your project teams divide up the work. Hint: don’t be that person who volunteers to write the conclusion of the report and then sits back and twiddles his/her thumbs while everyone else does the real work. That’s lame.
You will be writing fairly often in here. There are ten or twelve shorter assignments at the beginning of the semester (usually around a page or so single spaced) in addition to the big research paper. You’ll also be creating or updating your resume and writing job-related correspondence (cover letters and so on) based on actual job ads.
Are you a hardcore instructor? Are you here to help us? Can we listen to music in class?
I’m hardcore about being ready to help you. No, please don’t listen to music in class.
How do I get an A?
Keep working! You can revise your assignments as much as you want. Many students get an A in this class.
How much of this class will be “fun” and how much will be “work”?
All work in this class will, I hope, be fun in the way that satisfying, challenging activities are fun. To me, things that are only fun on the surface or that are easily, immediately fun, aren’t always things that I’d want to do for an entire semester.
How long has Lance been teaching here?
Since 2005. I taught my first college class, Writing 39, at UC-Irvine in August, 2000. I’ve also taught at Chaminade and HPU.
How old are you? Do you have kids or pets?
39. No kids or pets! I have some air plants I got from Jenny Webster though.
Are there lessons in this class that let us get fun and active?
Yes. Unfortunately we don’t have class outside. We’ll be “fun and active” in the context of an academically rigorous English class. 🙂
What do you want from your students?
An effort toward continual improvement!
What was your worst experience as an instructor that strengthened your way of teaching?
This is a long story! I’ll talk about it in class. Please remind me.
