The course syllabus excerpts are followed by a list of my duties as TA and my personal reflections.
Teacher’s Assistant
Teaching Creative Writing 202, UBC
January-April 2011
Course syllabus excerpt:
This course will combine lectures and in-class writing, and hopefully at the end you will have a greater understanding of the basic forms of writing as they apply to a writer, and some ideas of how to incorporate techniques and structures into your own writing. You should be prepared to do in class writing. This means bringing a pen and paper or a laptop to every class.
The course will be graded as follows:
3 in class quizzes, each worth 25% (total of 75% of final grade)
3 writing assignments worth a total of 25% (please see handout for guidelines)Your TA’s are: Emily Urness, Kevin Spenst, Indra Das, Bill Radford and Natalie Thompson
A Final Thought
Arthur Rimbaud, one of the world’s greatest poets, retired from writing at the age of nineteen. E.O. Scott, a renowned scientist, just wrote his first novel at the age of eighty. Talent knows no age. What you write in this class might get you published, or you might come back to writing later in life. So write your heart out.
Duties:
- Supervise the learning of 31 students (each TA was responsible for their own cohort)
- Regular office hours
- Lecture on the basics of poetry writing (1 hour)
- Attend all lectures
- Grade student exams and papers (31 students x 3 papers x 5 pages/paper = 465 pages graded) (31 students x 3 exams = 93 exams marked)
- Collect student photocopying fees
My Experience
Notice the encouraging paragraph, “A Final Thought,” that appears in the syllabus excerpt. The professor I worked for, Lee Henderson, was a fantastic teacher who really believed in encouraging his students and honouring their efforts. It was a joy to work for him. Check out the feedback he gave me in the Peer Feedback section.
Lecturing on poetry is both an intimidating exercise (180 students!) and thrilling. I enjoyed it immensely. But even more enjoyable was working one-on-one with my students during office hours because I really got to delve into their work. Inevitably, my student’s personal motivations for writing came out in the discussions and it was wonderful to hear their aspirations and encourage them to keep writing.