Trickster Teachers

Trickster Teachers

Last week my mythology class was reading about trickster figures. Tricksters are playful, amoral, charismatic, and, well, tricky. After reviewing typical actions and attitudes of trickster figures, I asked students to form groups, choose a contemporary character (not...
The Tables are Turned on the Teacher: Tales from Writing Workshop

The Tables are Turned on the Teacher: Tales from Writing Workshop

A few years ago, Susan Odgers, Michael Anderson, and I received an NMC Foundation Grant to run a writing workshop with local people who had in the past or were then currently experiencing homelessness. With the help of Ryan Hannon of Goodwill Street Outreach, my...
What We Want to Learn

What We Want to Learn

Recently my friend Lisa Blackford gave me a draft of talking points or thoughts leading to potential talking points that her students had constructed in their planning for how they will approach members of the Traverse City community about a shared class project. Some...
Confusion and Learning

Confusion and Learning

We’re heading into the last leg of the semester, and many of us have students working on the most complex projects and concepts in our courses. If we were to walk in the students’ shoes a bit we would see that they are working on complicated culminating components in...
Emotional Appeals

Emotional Appeals

For the past week or so, my ENG 111 students have been coping with some problems I’ve set for them as they construct research posters for next week’s NMC student conference on Hunger and Homelessness Awareness. I’ve asked them to include a pathos image (one that...