back in session

school is back in session and i feel excited for the semester. although i'm a doctoral student in RWL, i don't have a master's, so i asked my advisors if it would make sense to get the master's along the way, and they agreed that it's a good idea. so, for the next year, i'll be taking a master's course each semester. i haven't interacted much with RWL master's students, but i know i'll learn a lot from the folks i take classes with this semester. so, here's what fall is looking like for me:

education 629: teaching english/literacy to adolescents in middle and secondary schools w/susan lytle, deb broderick, molly buckley, and sarah hobson

a couple of years ago, i wouldn't have been very interested in this class at all, but now, it's right in line with the out-of-school work i'm doing. this summer, with my friend jonathan, i started a volunteer organization called philadelphia immigrant mentoring collaborative(PIMC). we pair volunteer mentors (mostly undergrad penn students) with local immigrant youth (mostly high schoolers) who are interested in improving their conversational english, working on other school subjects, and learning about navigating school and planning for college. given this work and how little i know about what actually happens in schools, i'm really excited for the opportunity to learn about the ways adolescents in middle and high schools interact with english and literacy in the classroom. there's a possibility that i might be doing my field observations at FACTS charter school, which is just a couple of blocks from my house and has a large asian and asian american population. it would be right in line with the kinds of work i'm doing, though maybe it wouldn't give me as fitting an impression of what immigrant students face in public schools.

education 723: multicultural issues in education w/vivian gadsden, katrina bartow jacobs, melissa hentges, karim mostafa, and myself(!!)

that's right -- i'm also part of a teaching team this semester. we had our first class on monday and we have about two planning meetings a week. so far, i'm really happy with the way the class is going (including our syllabus, our plans for the semester's work, and the small group i'll be working with). the students are excellent and the readings are interesting and compelling. what i didn't expect was to be so comfortable as a TA in a classroom and to feel so excited to work with graduate students. the first day was inspiring and really fun. i've never thought that i'd be that interested in becoming a faculty member at a university or working with graduate students, but now that i'm a part of the teaching team for this class, that possibility has been opened back up for me. i hope i have some opportunities to research my own process of teaching in this class and also to understand more deeply how graduate students experience the classroom. i just can't wait to get to know these students, read their writing, and hear their ideas over the course of this semester.

well, that's all i've got for now. this semester, i'm committed to posting on this blog every wednesday. i hope i stick to it! it's been a strange summer (which i may talk about more later), but i'm surprisingly feeling very rejuvenated to be back in classes this semester. i can't wait to write more.