The Joys of Quirky Teaching

It’s Armageddon… I need Bruce Willis…

One of my favorite things about teaching is bringing new and clever ways of educating into my classroom. Most of the time, this means handing out bizarre and humorous essays to my students, or engaging them in some sort of wacky in-class writing activity. For examples, last week, I had several of my students proof read and correct a classic Prince of Nigeria spam email, in order to make it a more effective persuasive piece, since we were going over Persuasion and Argumenative writing.

This past class, I brought in a couple of literal music videos, a hilarious internet phenomenon that involves folks singing about what’s actually going on in the video. The students watched the original video, followed by the literal one, and we talked about how the language effectively changes what they are seeing. We compared and contrasted the lyrics, the videos, and the new messages.

I used Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, A-HA’s Take On Me, and my favorite of the bunch,  Creed’s With Arms Wide Open. The result was hilarious, and a wonderful learning experience. I can’t wait to do this in future classes.

I know I don’t update this personal blog enough, but I’m making it a New Year’s resolution of mine to update at least once a week from now on. For the most part, you can find me writing on Geekadelphia (we just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, thanks to our friends at Hewlett Packard), on Uwishunu, and Tweeting. I’m also hard at work on a new book, a travel narrative with my good friend (and recently budding stand up comedian) Glen.

The semester is wrapping up quickly, and it’s been a successful one, both in the classroom and out. My two courses at MC3 and Peirce were fantastic, and I spoke at Long Island University last month. I only have one more class at MC3 and Peirce College left. I genuinely feel like I learn so much with every new class, and I’ve been blessed with an administration that welcomes my creativity, and students who respond quite well to it. I’ll be sad to say goodbye to such a wonderful group of kids, but I’m already looking forward to next semester.