[Note: You’ll probably get more out of this if you start at part 1.] So: how to make Rome livable, without doing as the Romans do? Redefine Realistic First off, I’m no longer going to take it upon myself to try and teach my students how to write in contexts where it’s not part of the course. After all, I have a heavier classload than lots of profs who give no writing work to begin with — and the writing courses usually end up in the foreign profs’ courses , though I think it’s debatable who’s better equipped to teach Korean …
Category: teaching in Korea
On Teaching Writing in a Korean University — Part 3: When in Rome… Stop and Ask Yourself: Why Do Romans Do What They Do?
[Note: You’ll probably get more out of this if you start at part 1.] So, we’ve established that Korean humanities programs — or at least a number of them — seem not to prioritize writing. We’ve established that this conflicts with the normal Anglophone idea (or at least, a common idea from the Anglophone world) of how a humanities education works. I want to emphasize, though that this is not just a philosophical difference. The philosophical difference has profound effects, down to the level of budget, the level of resource allocation, and more — and that this is a self-reinforcing …
On Teaching Writing in a Korean University — Part 2: A Little Context For You
[Note: You’ll probably get more out of this if you start at part 1.] Last time, I noted that the normal approach to undergraduate university humanities education in Korea seems to involve far less writing than in universities I’ve attended in Canada, and what I’ve heard from friends who studied in England, Scotland, America, Australia, and other places. Allow me to elaborate: as a music student, I did almost no writing except in my elective courses. This is problematic, but I will defend it slightly by saying we did a lot of submitting of work — but they were music …
On Teaching Writing in a Korean University — Part 1: Sarcasm, and a Recognition
I just been working through the final articles submitted to me by my Journalistic Writing class, and I have to admit, I’m mostly pleased and impressed. Even though there are a few pieces that have me baffled — how could someone hand in something that was obviously not proofread, was written at the absolute last minute, and so on — I am overall quite surprised by the quality of the work I’ve been reading. One thing that’s especially interesting is how a number of students have taken it upon themselves — yes, after urging from me — to find some …
Save the Classroom Time for Discussions (Why to Lecture by MP3)
A few weeks ago, I bemoaned the fact that so many classes were canceled on Tuesdays this semester — Tuesdays being the two-hour sessions in a few of my content-focused classes — that I’d either have to hold make-up classes or drop some content from the course. (And holidays seem to sort of contradict the point of a holiday, right?) A former co-worker, Allison Bill, pointed me at a concept I’d never encountered before, in this interview with José Bowen (the video in the linked page), in which he explains ideas expanded upon here; but one idea not explored deeply in the …
Eerie…
Somehow, the almost completely nonfunctional lock on Torjan’s workchamber door was magically repaired over the weekend. It seems to work as good as new now. Er…? Torjan is somewhat perturbed at the moment, and wondering if his aetheric postings are either being examined by some High Administratae… or, more scarily, by some invisible beings that make his aetherically-posted demands come true? If so: this Hypagoran could use a couple of billion won. (It never hurts to ask.)
A Letter to a Teacher
The other day, I wrote a letter to a long-ago teacher of mine. He was my English teacher back in high school, and he was, finally, pretty great. I don’t know why, at the beginning of things, he was convinced I needed to be booted out of class. But when things finally turned around, they went great and I learned a lot from him. The reason I wrote the letter was because, a few months ago, a complete prick retired. The complete prick was another teacher of mine, and he was unrelentingly, unabashedly, and rather straightfowardly, a complete prick, at …
You Do Realize That You’re Baring Your Soul To Me, Right?
I’d heard from others that teaching Creative Writing to undergrads, one tends to see things that those students don’t or can’t express anywhere else. In Canada, I recall hearing classes tended to have to wade through story after story of students’ first sexual experiences, of their best or worst sexual experiences, of imagined sexual experiences, and of course the perennial fantasies of sexual violence (mostly by male students). Well, I am happy to report that this isn’t my experience in Korea.
English Made Difficult…
Last week, I happened to stop by the little used book shop area at my local train station and picked up some funny little books because, when I opened one, it was so mindblowingly awful and hilarious and sad all at the same time. The books are all by one author: a guy named Robert Bahk (1923-1991), about whom I’ve found very little online—though, you know, I haven’t searched too hard. His bio says that he did some school in the USA, and attended some Ivy League school—attended, yes, but no mention of graduation was made in the bio I …
Essay Comments Triage
The funny thing is, in one of my classes, almost every student made a serious effort to write a creditable, intelligent essay. Even those who I think missed the mark still made an effort. In another of my classes — one of the writing courses — there’s a kind of relentless bleah, f*ck-it, whatever attitude that persists from semester to semester. Though we have hour-long critique sessions wherein student work is discussed, as often as not the work comes back pretty close to how it originally was drafted. Even when everyone else has recommended a rewrite. Even when everyone including …