FoolsCap

I confess I enjoyed this reading, on the whole–even if it only exacerbated my anxieties about getting back into the academic arena.  I’m (usually) confident of my abilities as reader, writer, and critic, but since I’ve never been called upon to teach before. . .well, I’m sort of putting a lot of faith in Dr. Rice’s course to prepare me for next semester.  What I’m happy to hear and read though–albeit in a sort of schadenfreude way–is the repeated assertion of experienced professors that they, too, were at one time greenhorn GTAs.

Some other thoughts about this reading:

• Not to sound like I thought an academic career was some cushy gig where you do naught but read and teach all the livelong day, but the Booth reading emphasized just how much there is to an academic career.  I don’t think I was ignorant of this before, just maybe the reading made me confront it a bit more consciously.  Between the demands of department meetings, scholarship, guest lecturing, etc., I can see where the emphasis on teaching can fall to the wayside.  Booth raises an interesting question: Are those of us who decide to enter academia primarily teachers who engage in scholarship (in order to further our careers) or primarily scholars who engage in pedagogy (in order to keep the bills paid between books and articles)?  I suppose it’s mostly a matter of personal priorities, but. . .it sure seems churlish to claim the latter.
• Booth seems to be a very engaged instructor, at least based on his notes to his students that form part of the reading.  I’ve always admired in my instructors when they acknowledge other essays I’ve written for them–it makes it seem as though the essays form part of an ongoing dialogue with the instructor. 
• That said, at one point Booth chides one of his students for turning in a paper that, he indicates, is not up to her usual standard.  I’ve been mulling this over: is this really a fair standard of assessment?  I suppose it’s a sign of the prof’s confidence in the student to say "your work is usually good; what happened here?"–but I also think that she should be judged on the paper’s individual merits as measured against her classmates’ achievement on the same assignment.  This might be the case, since Booth doesn’t tell us what score the paper was given, but his note seems very disappointed in his student.
• About grading standards: Any advice from those of you who have taught before about lowering personal standards to a realistic level for classroom use?  Cindy and Nicole mentioned this is the Writing Center meeting on Friday, in suggesting that our work there will expose us to some of the writing talent (ahem) in the University.  I’m still anxious, though, that I’ll end up being too harsh on my students–writing comes easily to me (usually), and I’ve not yet honed my patience for those to whom writing does not.
• How do you teach freshman comp if you’ve never taken it?  I tested out of it by taking AP comp exams, so I’m not exactly sure how/what/why assignments to issue next semester.  I’ll be handle lit classes with much less stress, since I’ve had dozens of those.  But these comp classes have got me a little on edge.