[Teaching_Composition] teaching the course

[Kate McKinney]

My little bitty personal example of combining kairos and pedagogical 
intention/planning is what I call "the 'fact' conversation":

I know that sometime (usually in the first discussions about the 
relationships amongst natural science, epistemology and scientific writing) 
that a student will use the word "fact" in connection with science-- "it's 
based on facts" or some such--, and I know that I want to have a 
whole-class-long conversation about how that word (I call it "the f-word") 
is ultimately inappropriate to describe anything having to do with real 
science.

It's a GREAT discussion, but I don't want to introduce it artificially. I 
want kairos. I want a student to say "fact" and for me to dramatically say 
"WAIT---stop everything: WHAT is a FACT?" and move on from there. So it 
"floats" in my plan.  I anticipate when it might happen, and set a 
contingency plan for when it doesn't.  This semester, "fact conversation?" 
has been on my outline for three days, and it hasn't happened yet....I 
wonder if it will?

--Kate McKinney
NCSU

>From: Chris Anson <chris_anson@ncsu.edu>
>Reply-To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
>To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
>Subject: Re: [Teaching_Composition] teaching the course
>Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:52:35 -0500
>
>Speaking of kairos--there's an interesting tension between what's current 
>and what's already inscribed in a course plan. And I think there's a good 
>deal of research to be done there, such as how students respond to the 
>alteration of a plan, spontaneous or otherwise, because of a particularly 
>good temporal event or issue, and how teachers juggle or might learn to 
>juggle a course plan (based on defined outcomes) along with such moments.
>
>
>On Jan 18, 2007, at 2:17 PM, Heather Lettner-Rust wrote:
>
>>Have you found any methods to introduce that kairotic notion?
>> 
>>I think it can begin on the first day as I invite students to 
>>re-conceptualize their identity and their
>>role in the classroom.   I ask them to collect at the front of the 
>>classroom (that space which I
>>usually inhabit), shake hands and introduce themselves to each other as
>>name and occupational or personal (the environment, corporate 
>>responsibility, etc.) interest . . .
>>It’s an effort to identify as citizens, members of another community, 
>>rather than the academic
>>role with which they come to the course.
>> 
>>From that day on, I say that it is not your average English class for we 
>>begin to
>>change their notions of research, writing, and publishing.
>> 
>>-Heather
>> 
>> 
>>
>---
>Chris M. Anson
>Professor of English
>Director, Campus Writing and Speaking Program
>Box 8101 (OR) 131G Tompkins
>North Carolina State University
>Raleigh, NC  27695-8105
>(919) 513-4080
>http://www.home.earthlink.net/~theansons/Portcover.html
>

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