First Week of Classes Spring 2020

I am not unique or special in stressing how important the first day, week, of class is.
In the years since I shifted how I approached this time- from reading the syllabus and hammering out how serious I am about rules to actually focusing on centering the students and doing the work- the difference in my classroom is night and day.

On my first day last week my composition classes walked into this:

All my classes make name tents, and usually by the end of the first week I know most names, and know all of them by the second. Since reading Being the Change, and especially since this video of Hasan Minaj's sharing about his name I approach names differently in my class. I tell them with my name I am not okay with "okay, I'm going to just call you Kate." Um, no. 
I stress to them to be proud of their names. And the slide about my name on the class info and resources shows my pride in my name.

In my composition classes I also do this the first day, asking them to write in their notebooks. It sets the tone right away that our class will center on them.

We do four assignments in composition and they get to choose.

You will have four major assignments this semester, each based on a type of writing (genre). We will cover mentor/model texts so you can see how they look, the elements that they include, and review mini-lessons to teach you the parts of the writing assignment. In class we will also check in on your progress, and the smaller skills needed to create the major writing assignment. You list of composition assignments to choose for each genre are listed here.

Major writing assignment #1: You will write a personal narrative	25%
Major writing assignment #2: You will write an informative piece	25%
Major writing assignment #3: You will write an argumentative/position paper	25%
Final Writing portfolio	25%

In all my classes we also dive right into the word. I choose poems, videos that I think represent the big ideas of the course. For these classes it was Clint Smith.

For my Gender and Lit class it was “A Song for Many Movements,” Audre Lorde (In case you don't know it)

Nobody wants to die on the way
and caught between ghosts of whiteness
and the real water
none of us wanted to leave
our bones
on the way to salvation
three planets to the left
a century of light years ago
our spices are separate and particular
but our skins sing in complimentary keys
at a quarter to eight mean time
we were telling the same stories
over and over and over.

Broken down gods survive
in the crevasses and mudpots
of every beleaguered city
where it is obvious
there are too many bodies
to cart to the ovens
or gallows
and our uses have become
more important than our silence
after the fall
too many empty cases
of blood to bury or burn
there will be no body left
to listen
and our labor
has become more important
than our silence

Our labor has become
more important
than our silence.

Just like centering my students, what they want to write about, I think immediately diving into the work of the class shows them what we'll do, shows them what I'll honor, and it goes a long way.

We end the first day with them going onto Blackboard, going to our syllabus, learning how to click on the links for Class Notes and Course Information and Resources. They read through the information and do an exit ticket- one thing they like, one thing they think will help them, and any questions they have.

The proof is in the pudding- that first day, just 50 minutes, and the exit tickets tell me my class has done what I want. They tell me that they appreciate that the class seems chill, that I seem interested in them, letting them learn how they want, that the attendance policy (or lack thereof) will really help, they like the choice, that they can tell I care.

I don't have to tell them these things, they know because of how I've set up class AND because I SHOW them. I don't just say things, we do them.

I do this because it is what I have found is best for my students. I don't do it to fend off complaints (I don't get them) or to avoid plagiarism (never an issue in my classes) or grade challenges (don't get those either). 

I do this because this is the culture I want my class to have.

I want them to know their voices are valued. And, applying what I learn from all the Teachers and Scholars of Color online, when a students said they liked that I gave them a voice, I knew to say that I was going to push back on that- that no professor especially a White one could give them a voice, they ALWAYS had voices, just in my class they would be centered.

I want my students to explore, and learn, and be challenged, and to do so in a space where they will be valued.

This is not to say that the first day or even the second day was not without issues. I teach 11a Composition, 12p Capstone, 1p Gender and Lit all in a row, and that's a lot the first day with lugging supplies and books and notebooks and I was a sweaty, gross mess, which is not an ideal first impression. One classroom had the heat on, and it was 70 degrees out, so that was also not ideal. Another classroom was cramped because I didn't have time to think through the seating and arrange it quite like I wanted, although I fixed this by Friday. I did not have advanced notice that I had students who had accommodations, so I worried about that, even though I try to make ALL my classes accommodated by default, I still worried about this.

Because so many of the texts we're dealing with in Gender and Lit are hard ones, I spent a day lecturing about the harm of bias, stereotypes, and assumptions. Following models on anti-racist work, I stressed to them that in order to do this work we first had to confront where we were, honestly. So they chose one of the gender related implicit bias tests. They had to write in notebooks one instance where they were harmed by bias and when they harmed someone else. Using activities from Not Light But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom we also set guidelines for how we will deal with the horrific things in the texts we'll cover this semester, and I was explicit about the hard lines, that "kindness" was not an excuse to accept or act in racist ways, and that there would be no arguing of "both sides."

Building on this, part of Wednesday's class will center these questions for our work

We're also going to talk about how intent does not negate impact.

In all my classes I'm continuing to work on being explicit about the choices I made, how we're working, and citing the ideas and work of others.

I've also doubled down on the less grading, grading conferences this semester which is a natural outgrowth of last semester but still a big change, as is the implementation of writer's notebooks in all my upper level English classes.

I think most students really liked the first two classes. The composition students had fun with the PB & J exercise in John Warner's The Writer's Practice which is our new key text. There were arguments about the "right" way to make it, and some even texts family group text to ask questions. In gender and lit we had to set some ground rules, so a hard class, but I checked in with students after, and all seemed to think it went well.  

But not everyone's going to like my classes, or me, so there were a couple of rough spots.

That's okay.

Every class is a fresh start.

I am very excited about this semester, the classes, the students. I was very happy that I had students in my office all week, just hanging out. Even had several students from last semester just stop by to say hi, which I also love.

Today I'll lesson plan for the upcoming week, and I needed to backtrack and add some things to class notes that I did not have a chance to during the week. I've added this gem to a slide in Gender and Lit so I thought I'd share here because, well, it's the perfect look.

Or at least, it's a perfect ME look.