I'm always simply putting one word beside another.

English Studies (Children's and YA Lit) PhD Student (3rd year).

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Teaching woes

On the one hand, I want my students to learn the skills like prioritizing, which is why I’m explicit with them about the reading they can and should do--none of them are English majors, I don’t give quizzes because that’s not what my class is about, and they really only have to read one book per unit to do the necessary work. (Now, is their grade going to be better if they read all the books? Of course, and I tell them that. But they’re adults and they can decide what to read and what not to read, rather than just whine about the reading.) 

But on the other hand, it makes class discussions so much more difficult when no one can contribute anything because no one read. 

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The meeting got postponed until today, but it ended up being a good meeting!

The new grad coordinator is turning out to be very helpful and supportive, and I’ve got some new ideas and directions for exam prospects and people to ask! 

For anyone who might be interested, I’m planning on exploring intersections of visual rhetoric and public pedagogy through young adult romance book covers - this (hopefully) builds on the class project I already have that I wanted to use as my exam and also connects it to some of the pedagogy directions I’m going in my internship course. 

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Meeting today with the Graduate Coordinator because I have no idea what to do for my English Studies exam (since my Plan A didn’t end up panning out). 

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Settling in.

So, I’ve been a Tumblr resident for a number of years (though my consistency in participating varies), but recently I started following a number of gradblrs on my regular blog. It didn’t fit. My dash felt...weird. So I unfollowed them. But I still think maybe it’s important to have a space where I can talk about the grad school experience (potentially with like-minded people, if I ever find any of those). 

So here I am. 

I’m four weeks into the third year of my PhD in English Studies, with a concentration in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. 

It’s terrifying, really. Being a third year. Being done with coursework. Being on my own. 

I’m teaching two literature classes for the first time ever - one in my field (Foundations in Children’s Lit, which I’ve taught before) and one is my internship, a course I design and execute that turns into a Pedagogy exam (1 of 3) and a chapter of my dissertation. It’s heckin’ nerve-wracking. But kind of awesome. It’s early; we’ll see. 

But this is the journey I’m on.