What do you want to do for a Career?, Or state it if you got one. Options

[Zelda_Zealot]

Personally I want to end up working for Bethesda, using the Construction Set, or maybe writing the books. That would be a great thrill for me, having my own works found by adventurers far and wide across the face of Tamriel. Writing the quests, plot, and short stories found in an Elder Scrolls game would be a dream job for me... Too bad I need to go to collage first.

So how about all of you? What whould be your preffered job/career? Or, if you already have it, tell us what it is. Feel free to use all the detail you want, or lack there of.

[treydog]

I will add just a bit to Canis' wonderful insights on what it takes to be a good teacher. I have taught writing and literature at a college level in the past, and hope to do so again once I reach retirement age. Nothing else I have done has been as fulfilling as teaching. At the same time, it can be a grind- you have to assign enough papers to make the students practice the craft- and then you have to thoughtfully grade those papers. Consider 1 paper per week x 20 students per class x 3 classes for 14 weeks.... But- when you have an older than average student, a man in his 40's looking to start a second career, and he isn't sure he can be a writer. And you work with that student to prove to himself that he not only has something useful to say, but that he has the tools to say it... there is no feeling like it.

If you want to teach students to be better writers, teach them to be better readers. That doesn't necessarily mean forcing them to read exclusively "capital-L Literature". But you need to equip them with critical reading skills- get them to a place where they can articulate why a story or poem or play "worked for them"- or why it didn't. I always told my students that a piece of writing is a transaction, a deal, between writer and reader. The writer has the burden of saying something interesting in a clear, readable fashion. The reader has the obligation of making the effort to be open-minded. Sometimes, a reader doesn't like a piece of writing because the author failed.

Another key that I found success with was learning what my students cared about. And then I said, "OK- write about that." One of my (female) students was involved in dirt-track racing with her family. She spent the entire semester writing papers about racing- narrative, description, compare-contrast, etc. And she did a good job because she knew the subject matter and because it interested her.

Show the students that almost anything can be an "occasion" for writing. Bring in an object and let the class free-associate off of it, generating ideas and then organizing those ideas into a paragraph or a paper. I had great fun with a jar of peanut butter.

Insist that the students draft and revise- but be flexible in your definition of what constitutes a "draft". Some people live and die by outlines- others never use them. But all good writers do revisions. Separate the process of writing from the process of editing/revising. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, etc., etc., etc. are NOT writing. Writing is putting words on paper or on the computer screen.

Above all- great teachers are enthusiastic about their field of study- and they communicate that enthusiasm to their students. Not all people who excel in a profession excel as teachers- they don't have the spark, the facility that allows them to be "missionaries" for the work they love. On the other hand, a good teacher can do a good job on almost any subject, given enough time and resources to prepare.

This post has been edited by treydog: Oct 29 2008, 04:56 PM