So I emailed the course director to see whether I could meet with him and discuss my class, and I mentioned the problems I've been encountering (minus, obviously, my belief that the subject matter and materials kinda suck), and he wrote back with a few moderately helpful suggestions, probably the best of which is just to do a shitload of different things each class period: reading quiz, discussion, in-class writing, group work, etc.

That makes sense, and after coming up with about five related but very different activities I'm feeling much more positive about how things will go tomorrow. I've also been assessing my expectations for the course and from my students and realizing that I may simply not have properly anticipated what these students can do and can't do, or thought through the ways in which my pedagogy needs to adapt. For instance, I hadn't really seen much point in giving them reading quizzes when the reading load is so light (and it's pretty evident who's done the reading), but I think it's true that my students aren't always reading very carefully. Short quizzes will a) allow me to find that out, b) put them on notice that they need to be reading closely, and c) provide a starting point for discussion.

I was also a little surprised when I looked over the introductory paragraphs I'd asked them to write, in stod och småpratade en liten stund under mitt megastora paraply som jag hittade på pride. vi utbytte nummer och lovade att höra av oss snart.

det är jobbigt väder. så fuktigt. jag svettar ner alla mina kläder jättesnabbt. jag känner att jag börjar få lite vinterlängtan också.

noterat: audioscrobbler har blivit last.fm och riktigt snyggt
dagens fotoblog: a photo a day
dagens roliga: fimpa virtanen (sanslöst roligt)snyggt
dagens fotoblog: a photo a day
dagens roliga: fimpa virtanen (sanslöst roligt)