Second class went reasonably well…there were a few stumbling moments, one or two moments of “attitude” from the students, but once we got rolling, it seemed to be fine.

I had assigned the first chapter, an introduction, for reading. There really wasn’t a whole lot to it. Why is writing important? How do we learn to write? Blah blah blah. But the minute I got there, I got complaints of “I didn’t understand the reading.” “There was too much.” Not sure what to do about this.

I went through and highlighted some of the main points for them. We talked about different types of writing. Tone. Style. Genre.

As an activity, I handed out a bunch of pieces of writing, all of them by me. I had them get into groups and try to determine who the piece’s intended audience was, what the purpose of the piece was, and what the author’s tone was. I think they at least somewhat enjoyed that…

I was walking by the classroom before class stared, and I think I overheard one of them saying that he was upset to have a first-time teacher. I try not to take these things personally.

Next week, we start doing some writing.

On the way out, I heard one of the students ask one of the others “How many English classes do we have to take?”

Yes, I’m teaching a “required” course. Which means they just *love* me. I said “I take it you don’t like English?”

He said, “It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s that I don’t understand it, and it’s really hard for me.”

Ahhh….my challenge of the semester.

I didn’t feel so bad about the attitude I’d gotten when R told me about his first class. Now, he has grad students…which one would think is a completely different world than undergrads at a community college, right?

He did an icebreaker activity with them, and asked them to tell him something about themselves that they wanted him to know.

One of them said “I hate icebreakers.”

😛