Bad Teacher: In Defense of “Winging It” in the Classroom

This semester it feels like I’ve had an awful lot of those days where I’m just not as prepared for class as I’d like to be, and I’ve been struggling with guilt about that. I have a very reasonable teaching load, so it’s not a matter of being overwhelmed or tired. I am teaching a …

Gritty in the Composition Classroom

I was introduced to Gritty, the Philadelphia Flyer’s new mascot, while scrolling through Twitter. Despite originally being from Eastern Pennsylvania and coming from (in the words of my dad) a “long line of suffering Philadelphia sports fans,” I first saw Gritty while reading this tweet from poet Eve Ewing in which she describes him as …

Syllabus & Lesson Planning: Back to Basics When Teaching New Texts

One of my undergraduate professors once told me that professors are often asked to teach outside of their areas. I really did not understand what she meant. Surely, every teacher is teaching a text that they have read a million times and taught several times too? I realize that as an undergraduate I had no …

Translating Composition Writing Activities into the Literature Classroom

Like many with a literature background, I started teaching in the composition classroom. Also, like many in such a position, I am well aware of the debates that surround such issues. Who is qualified to teach writing and what gives them those qualifications? I am not going to wade deep into these decades old discussions …