Another disappointment included not receiving help from faculty and staff at our "partner" university, Oregon State. I'd been planning to teach a brand new course, Introduction to the Rhetoric of Film. The only school in Oregon that offers it is OSU so I needed to know their student learning outcomes in order to create a course that they would accept so our curriculum committee would accept it. Last year, in winter 2009, when I emailed the department chair for the first time, he didn't answer me. This year, I emailed the teacher of the course and spoke with him twice. He promised to send the syllabus and the outcomes but never did. I also emailed the departmental administrative assistant who didn't sent me a syllabus either.
So, by the time COCC's registration started in late February, I was feeling very unprepared to teach the course. None of the current textbooks I've found, like The Terministic Screen or Narrative in Fiction and Film, are suitable for community college freshmen. If I was going to work without a text I really needed outcomes and a bit more help. Didn't get it. After a weekend of registration filled almost all the other speech courses but left my new SP199 course with only two bodies, I decided to abandon the course and teach another section of the ever popular small group communication.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Horrible Ending of the Quarter
Last quarter ended terribly and I just haven't wanted to blog about it.
First, there was the problem of my Philosophy of Love and Sex class. Reading their final analyses, I realized that at least half of them were leaving the class invested in the same old belief in "true love" they had when they entered. I feel like King C'nut, trying to hold back the waves of noxious ideology and like him, I think I just have to turn back that work to a higher power.
Second, there were the two exploding teams, one in each small group communication class. Two teams did not check up on their paper writers and suffered at the very end of the quarter when in one group, the writer stole two thirds of the paper and in the other, the writer didn't even turn the paper in. This is a terrible betrayal of other students who, basically, allowed themselves to be betrayed. I spent much time online on my Ipod Touch dealing with each issue.
I was on my Touch because we were off to New York on March 21 where, among other stories we consumed was South Pacific, a play that celebrates "true love" in that "at first sight" 1940s fashion and reveals it in all its awe-full glory.
First, there was the problem of my Philosophy of Love and Sex class. Reading their final analyses, I realized that at least half of them were leaving the class invested in the same old belief in "true love" they had when they entered. I feel like King C'nut, trying to hold back the waves of noxious ideology and like him, I think I just have to turn back that work to a higher power.
Second, there were the two exploding teams, one in each small group communication class. Two teams did not check up on their paper writers and suffered at the very end of the quarter when in one group, the writer stole two thirds of the paper and in the other, the writer didn't even turn the paper in. This is a terrible betrayal of other students who, basically, allowed themselves to be betrayed. I spent much time online on my Ipod Touch dealing with each issue.
I was on my Touch because we were off to New York on March 21 where, among other stories we consumed was South Pacific, a play that celebrates "true love" in that "at first sight" 1940s fashion and reveals it in all its awe-full glory.
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