An idea is formed for my paper topic…

I’ve really been struggling with my paper topic. Since I’m not yet teaching and have not done so in the past, the whole idea of pedagogy problems we discuss in class is new to me. It’s in no way a topic I have previously mused on or written anything on. Lucky me, I actually had an epiphany in class last Thursday and came up with a topic. I love the light bulb that randomly appears above your head when you least expect it but need it the most. Editing and grammar – this is my paper idea. Random, yes, but I do have a story. I’m an editor. I worked professionally for 5 years in NY and now I do freelance. I’ve been trying to finish up a job this week for one of my clients and I’ve been knee deep in punctuation and grammar checking as I’m on the final proofread. Also, aside from my professional editing life, I’m also knee deep in grading on TOPIC where many, many, MANY of the essays I read go downhill due to bad editing (proofreading) and grammar. For a very long time, grammar has been my life. Seems like more so than normal lately. I don’t mind though; I love punctuation and grammar. How weird is that. When I edit, it’s like solving a math problem for me, but in a more creative manner. SO, I’ve decided to do my paper on editing and grammar. I plan to look at it first in a theoretical and historical manner. How important it was back in the day. How the rules have changed for the good or bad. Also, I plan on looking at editing in freshman composition classes. It’s import or if it’s even taught. I also plan to use some samples from my own editing. I want to look at the before, the suggestions I make to the author and the revisions. Study the final result and see how important the editing changes were and how they affected the overall writing. I may include some first and second drafts from students in TOPIC also; see how they changed their essay after being critiqued by their peers and also the changes the grader suggested. I’m still working out all the details, but these are some basic ideas I have for the paper. I’m still working on the source material. Going to have me a fun day in the library! I’m also going to search ntce.org for pertinent material. I have to say I’m pretty excited. I think there are a lot of ways I can go on the subject of editing and grammar and its changes and effectiveness. I’m anxious to see which direction my paper will take. Good luck to me!

Teaching Philosophy example...

http://www.isd.uga.edu/teaching_assistant/philosophy/2003/Bennett/index.html

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wider universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”
--"Self Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The teaching philosophy I chose to discuss opens with the above quotation by Emerson. I thought this was a very insightful and applicable quotation as to how a teacher functions. The author refers back to the quotation throughout her statement, picking it apart and pointing out how it applies.

As teaching philosophies go, I can't say I have a lot of knowledge thus far, but in the one above, I completely agree with the idea that we, as teachers, are "lifelong learners." We must put ourselves on the same level as the student, learning and accumulating knowledge everyday. When we stop learning, our minds become stagnant. We must continually be adding to our store of information, thereby stimulating our own minds so we can in turn stimulate the minds of our students.

I think it is also important to go back to your own learning experiences, as the author the philosophy discussed. What made you yourself excited about learning? What experience or experiences had the most impact on you and made you want to come back to class again the next day, just to see what would happen? In forming our own philosophies, it is very important to look back at those of others and how they have impacted our own lives and the ways we teach and learn. We can learn a lot from the experiences of others who have “been through it” before.

Lastly, moving back to the "lifelong learners" idea, I like the way the author shares her learning experience with her students. When they ask questions she doesn't know the answer to, instead of saying "Well, what do you think?” she goes and finds the answer and then tells them where and how she got it. This way, students not only learn the answers, but they also learn how to find answers themselves. This learning tool will come in handy throughout the students careers as they move on to research projects.

Basically, I like the never ending learning process we, as teachers, share with our students. I think it is important for them to know that the teacher does not know everything. He or she is there to not only guide the students in their learning experience, but to also acquire knowledge with them.

Keyword Video Ideas – Audience

My keyword is audience. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between ideas, but got some inspiration after leading class on Thursday and discussing the article “Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy” by Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford. The article discussed two main audience roles – audience addressed and audience invoked – and explained the difference between the two. I will most likely use some of these points in my video. I have also been reading some works on audience by Peter Elbow. I have come across some good techniques and ideas concerning audience from Writing With Power, by Elbow, and will also be using a couple of other articles, but am still deciding which ones. I am going to try to make a PowerPoint presentation, combining points from Ede/Lunsford, Elbow, and possibly some other sources. Along with the PowerPoint, I have been working on video clips concerning different audience roles named in the Ede/Lunsford article. These roles include self, friend, colleague, critic, mass audience, and future audience. I’ve been trying (and hopefully will find all by Thursday) to get each of these different audience roles on video, using different activities and atmospheres, so I can splice them throughout the PowerPoint presentation. I think with both video and key points, this should be an effective and entertaining way to convey the importance of audience and the different roles it plays depending on the situation. I’m also going to try to put in some nifty music and a couple of audience movie clips that I think would fit really well and spice things up a bit, but this depends on how well iMovie and I actually get along! So far it seems to be slow going as this is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. Once I actually figure out what the heck I’m doing, I think this is going to be really fun, but at present, it kind of feels like I’m beating my head against a wall and getting nowhere. Yes, I am almost completely computer illiterate; I admit it. I like my MS Word and my Internet, and the rest of ye programs be damned! Ha Ha. But I’m getting there. Slowly but surely I hope to figure it all out by Thursday, hopefully in a lightning burst of knowledge that brings much but causes little pain.