"The semester starts on a Monday. The semester starts on a Monday."
That’s what we tell ourselves, sure, but the reality is that for a lot of instructors working in higher education--graduate students teaching in writing programs, contingent faculty, tenured professors at universities with smaller English departments--the semester starts on the date of the pre-semester mini-conference. These departmental, occasionally intradepartmental, events might range from half-day workshops focused on the mission of the writing program to day-long conferences with breakout sessions led by colleagues in the department and peers from institutional entities like student services and writing centers. Pre-semester mini-conferences have been a part of my time at my last three stops: Illinois State University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Montevallo. In the Spring of 2018, I lead my first session at one of these events, entitled: “What Do You Know About Antecedent Knowledge?” at ISU Writing Program Grassroots Summit. Yesterday, I lead my second session. Yesterday, I, along with a peer, led a Q&A session with new graduate student instructors working in the writing program. This was the first year since I joined ISU that I was not involved with new instructor orientation, so I was excited to meet the new cohort. Yet, as I began planning, I tried to remain conscious of how my own positionality—and my own ability to impart wisdom, of which I think I have very little—would transfer to these probably exhausted, newly minted Ph.D. students after a week-and-a-half of orientation. (Yes, a week-and-a-half. Yes, probably too long.) So, I threw down the pen and paper and decided to let the questions they have guide the conversation. This turned out to be a clever idea, and my peer and I were able answer pointed questions instead of blabbering on for so long about our own experiences. However, I did write 3 things down in the notes in my phone which I wanted to make sure I worked into the conversation. I figured they might be worth sharing here now:
I don’t necessarily think the things I mentioned to the new cohort are groundbreaking or landmark or life-changing or whatever. A lot of it came from Gregory Colón Semenza’s highly recommended book Graduate Study for the 21stCentury. But, they were said, and they were, hopefully, absorbed. One day, down the road, maybe in the next four year, perhaps something mentioned yesterday will resonate with one of them.
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Charles WoodsPhD student focusing on Rhetoric, Composition, and Technical Communication at Illinois State University. Archives
October 2019
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