I ran into a colleague today who has been having a bit of trouble teaching technical communication. This is a topic well within my wheelhouse--not so much for my colleague.
We talked shop for a few moments and I passed along a few pointers, tips, and tricks. Later that day I sent along some class notes as well. Hopefully that's useful for them, but here's the kicker: It was really useful for me!
To be frank, I wasn't really feeling my oats today. I had a late start, I didn't feel particularly focused, and I mostly just wanted to slack off for the afternoon. On top of that, I forgot the text I'd been annotating for my own reference (Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe & Sirc's Writing New Media - highly recommended). It looked like a real washout session.
But talking about the craft of writing and our involvement in the classroom recharged me. It was a warm-up. With the relatively easy task of recounting what had worked in the classroom, I was able to push ahead and make something interesting and useful (in this case: assignment sheets).
The lesson today, then, is to take the little opportunities to discuss the work, because that is also in its own way the work that needs to be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment