Alphabetical Exotica

The question is, Which of these have you tried? Which would you, if indeed you would?

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English 145 (8): What is teaching worth?

And so in class, yesterday, we began to ask ourselves what teaching can deliver, what it is worth. What are the residuals of an advanced nonfiction workshop, for example? What will be carried forward, one short month from now, when we have had our last class and said our goodbyes (but not permanent goodbyes; that just won't do)? What will remain a decade hence, or two?

I want my students leaving English 145 knowing more about how they think and why they think what they do. I want them hungry, always, to know more, precise in articulating their beliefs, willing to take incalculable risks and to start all over again. I want them daring and I want them alert and I want them, most of all, to know their own value, to never doubt it.

Can we teach that? Perhaps not. We can only give it room to grow.

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Portraiture

In the early morning, walking Lititz, he was there. "Don't be afraid," his owner called out to me, but I wasn't. I was only afraid that I wouldn't move fast enough, that I would fail to capture his portrait.

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