Since I am in Paris for this semester, I am doing a couple of asynchronous courses online. One of those is my “Who is the Black Panther?” course for a literature and composition course. The other is a rhetoric and composition course, the first in the writing sequence. For that course, I am framing it, as I usually do, around personal essays, getting students … Read More How Does One Become a Better Writer? Read! Write! Repeat!
+ kin gordon, Pedagogy, rooster, teaching, writing
Every year, as the spring semester comes to a close, I think about some of the things I have tried to teach students over the course of the semester and academic year. As a composition teacher, my main goal is to help students become better writers and readers, and hopefully, through that combination, become better students in the process. If they can hone their … Read More What Does Writing Mean for Students?
Esperaba que alguna vez. Nada puede durar tanto, no existe ningún recuerdo por intenso que sea que no se apague. I woke up alone in Puerto Vallarta. My mouth dry. My body sore. My senses numb. I heard the waves crashing against the rocks and receding back into the depths, and I desired nothing more than to become part of the backwash, letting it … Read More The Search for Nothing Amidst Everything
Almost two years ago to the day, I finally read Albert Camus’ The Stranger. I had come across, somewhere, a discussion of the novel’s ending, which I won’t spoil here, and I became intrigued, especially since I was reading texts about the Algerian War and about France’s protectorate control of Morocco. Since then, I have been wanting to read more Camus, especially his 1947 novel The Plague which … Read More The Role of the Artist in Interesting Times: A Look at Albert Camus’s “Creating Dangerously”
When I teach first year composition, I usually frame the course around personal narratives, allowing students to write about themselves. I find that this helps them get comfortable with writing and allows them to express themselves through their essays. As such, I try to choose at least one text that contains personal stories. This semester, I decided to add Nate Powell’s You Don’t Say, a collection … Read More “Is it a racist story?”: Nate Powell’s “Cakewalk”
