- Hi! Nice meeting you! Could you introduce yourself? What department are you from? What courses are you teaching or have been teaching? What are the classes you teach like, such as format or class size? Is there anything you want to tell us about your teaching, research, or other projects?
Hi everyone! My name is Manon, I’m a third-year doctoral student in comparative literature at the Graduate Center. I’ve been teaching in the Writing Program (ENG2100, ENG2150) and in the Great Works of Literature Program (ENG2850) at Baruch since the Fall 2019.
- Could you talk a little bit about that course you’ll be working on during this seminar?
I’ll be working on ENG2850, Great Works of Literatue. This is a required course for sophomores of all majors. We review literature of different genres from 1700 to present, roughly. The goal is that students get familiarized with major works of world literature and learn some literary analysis, developing critical thinking and cultural knowledge which hopefully they will export onto other disciplines, and beyond college too.
- What are the listed learning goals of your course? They could be ones provided by the department, or ones that you have written for your syllabus? Please list them (pasting is fine!).
Specific outcomes of this course are the following:
- Interpret meaning in literary texts by paying close attention to authors’ choices of detail, vocabulary, and style;
- Discuss the relationship between different genres of literary texts and the multicultural environments from which they spring;
- Articulate a critical evaluation and appreciation of a literary work’s strengths and limitations;
- Present their ideas orally;
- Write critical essays employing
o A strong thesis statement,
o Appropriate textual citations,
o Contextual and intertextual evidence for their ideas.
- What class materials are you planning to develop? What goals do you have for them?
I am currently using an interactive Google Doc where a student posts each week on the releant work, and the rest of the class comments on them. This has been great for discussion. I also lecture for half the class using a powerpoint and some videos. I need my students to engage in class as much as they do on the Google Doc. They are reluctant to speak, and are all off camera, so class can be tedious.
7 replies on “Manon Post 1”
This is so cool, Manon! I loved reading your post. I am intrigued about the Great Works class and what that’s like to teach. I suppose I am mostly curious about what is considered “Great Works” and how the sophomores respond within a required literature class. That’s just the best, really, required lit classes. I honestly love that.
I also love the idea of using a shared Google Doc for discussion. That is so simple yet so genius. I will use one when we do smaller-group work, but I have never used one as a discussion board and it’s something I may just have to borrow from you!
Thanks, Molly! I look forward to talking about it. The Google Doc was Allison Deutermann’s idea, she’s the Director of Great Works at Baruch. It worksvery well for written participation, and I think not just for an online course but also in-person.
Hi Manon! I really like the idea of using a shared Google Doc where one student posts each week, and all the other students respond–that seems like it would foster discussion better than just having each student post on Blackboard and respond to their writing group mates posts, which is what I’m currently doing. I think I’m also going to steal this idea moving forward!
It was a godsend for me when I was trying to prepare the course in the summer and Allison recommended it. I highly recommend it; it’s been working great!
Hi, Manon, I’m glad to see that there is someone else on here who teaches ENG courses. It would be great to chat with you about the assignments and student engagement for 2100 sometime.
Sure, would love to!
It’s great to meet you! One thing that has been helpful for me as well is also using Google Slides (& Google docs). I’ve found it really helpful in my synchronous classes as a way to help students comment on each other’s work, do group work, and add information to an activity!