Today in Composition, we spent some time on one last-minute edit of the first project before it was turned in, and I was interested to note how many typos, dropped and misspelled words were corrected! Hopefully, this kind of attention to detail will improve in later projects; to help ensure that happens, I've asked students …
Early Roman and Medieval Theater
Last class, we discussed David Wiles' essay on theater in early Rome and Medieval Christian Europe, though we paid most attention to the materiality of Medieval performance. Students were generally surprised by the real heterogeneity of performance modes in the Medieval period--from processionals to place-and-scaffold to Church interiors and the halls of private dwellings, the …
Montaigne
Today, we engaged in a rather Montaignian (Montaignesque?) discussion in 203, which I found exceptionally enjoyable. Almost everyone participated, thought I've still got a few hold-outs! We did some small group work first, where I asked students to draw on the introductory/contextual reading guide questions, finding one or two that struck them as most interesting …
Workshopping, Round 1
This morning in comp 102, we held our first workshopping day, and I've got mixed feelings about it. It's hard to read one's own work critically, true--but I still feel that looking at others' work is an important first step. Workshopping helps us acheive the degree of distance necessary to a critical examination of one's …
:15 Classes
Each year, I like to have a small-group, short-class meeting with students, ideally at the beginning of the term; today we had ours in Composition 2, and four students met together, with me, for :15 classes. The time allows me to get to know students a bit better, on the individual level, as well as …
Ancient Greek Theater, Lysistrata
Last class period, we had our first real session--filled with fun facts and close reading! Instead of a lecture, I wanted to encourage students to participate in their own learning by "specializing" on a question from the reading guide for Oliver Taplin's essay on ancient Greek theater. I handed out key questions from the guide …
The game needs some tweaks…
Most of the students really took the spirit of the game to heart, it seemed--especially the jury, who did a good job policing the answers. But, I think the rules of the game need to be a little more defined; it turned into more of a discussion (which is great!) than a game in which …
Theater History: The Use of Theater?
The first evening of Theater History, we went over the syllabus as usual, spending a bit of time going over each of the texts we're reading and the major assignments--students seemed interested in the performance project option, though I think many will choose to do the essay, instead. We're starting with the typical, ancient Greek …
World Lit, Day 1
The first day of my early modern world literature class went pretty well, I think; it was great to see both the familiar faces and the unfamiliar faces. One student in class is distantly related to Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, one seems really interested in reading The Rape of the Lock, and almost …
Comp 102: Introductions, Overview
I think the first class of our comp 102 course went swimmingly, though I miscalculated a bit on the time and we went over by a few minutes. We did the typical first day dance, going over the syllabus, but we also began thinking about the first project--which I hope the students will find enjoyable, …
Tonya Howe 