One of the subjects of our teaching circle is figuring out how we know when a class works. What characterizes a successful teaching experience? So we're bringing in our stories and after each one trying to pin down some of the similarities. We realize that there is no formula, but surely there are going to be some aspects we'll find in common.
Today went well. I added an additional discussion day (which has messed up the classroom scheduling because I alternate computer classroom with classroom that is nice to talk in), as they requested in the midterm survey. I went with trepidation because if they hadn't done the reading, this was going to be a long 75 minutes. I was kind of low energy -- I'd finished the grading just before class, a cold is starting again, and I'm hanging out at home with ben timna since he's on break so it's hard for me to get into that teacher mode. But I thought about how it could be organized and went with a fairly standard approach: limited the material to the first 1/3 of the book even though they should be about 2/3 of the way through, listed five categories on the board (gender, politics/economics, family, race, religion) and said sign up for the one you want to work on. Good groups formed without me intervening. And within 20 minutes they had 5-8 examples from the reading to start the discussion flowing. That class worked.
Finally, I asked them to write what surprised them or confused them in the text and something they had learned. As I read those memos, I remember why I assign this particularly difficult text. It's compelling, it's hard, it's brand new and disturbing material for most of them. But they are reading it. Next week we'll do the chronological criticism and I hope that works well, too.
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