Man of the People

One of our technical writing instructors had to take a sudden medical leave, and I was roped into taking over her class for the rest of the semester. The first thing that occurred to me as I looked at the instructor’s syllabus was that I don’t assign my students nearly enough homework. In a typical week she had a couple of quizzes, two or three writing assignments, student presentations, and several chapters from the textbook—compared to my typical week, which is to show a Scrubs episode, ask the students to talk amongst themselves about what the connection is to technical writing, and then cancelling class the rest of the week for no particular reason.

I had told the instructor I would try to stick with her syllabus to not upset the students, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is that every assignment I give my students just means more work for me.

I was nervous when I walked into the classroom today. The students were genuinely bummed when I told them their teacher wouldn’t be returning. A student asked if they would still have to take the quiz today. I apologized to them that some of my teaching philosophies weren’t in synch with their previous instructor’s, so they would have to go the rest of the semester without quizzes. This cheered them up rather quickly.

I put my new course schedule on the overhead, and a student noticed that the reading and affiliated writing assignment were no longer due on Monday. I explained that I wanted them to focus on their big team projects (which they’ll be working on for the rest of the semester), and I didn’t want to distract them with busy work. This elicited a few more fist pumps and whoops. I felt like a politician who was finally finding his groove and connecting with the crowd. I then pointed out that one of my conditions for taking over the class was that I wouldn’t teach on Fridays, so they would only be meeting twice a week from now on instead of three.

The whoop-whoops and cheers and high fives continued to escalate as I unfolded my vision for how the semester would end, including no more textbook readings, and cancelling a round of student presentations next week. Three girls were crying, yelling, “We love you, Mike!” I finished by revealing that I was cancelling the portfolio requirement. The crowd roared, and a couple of students hoisted me onto their shoulders. I held out my arms and fell backwards onto the rabble of cheering students. They passed me around the room, chanting, “Mike! Mike! Mike!”

It was pretty cool.