Like Bri & Tim, I've been having some trouble determining what types of readings and assignments to include on my intended syllabus. I think Tim's idea of a recent/contemporary novel that reads quickly is a great idea. As we are all such erudite scholars of English, I feel that each of the students would likely take an important lesson away from the reading. As Rebecca said in a comment to my previous post, if we're excited to teach, they'll be excited to learn. And after all, it wouldn't be the humanities if there weren't something "human" about what we study. (Not that I'm applying a totalizing effect on the students or the texts, but everybody can learn something from any given book.)
I have been having some low-degree anxiety about the assignments I've written. I keep looking at them and thinking "If I were a student, would I want more direction than this?" or "If I saw this prompt come into the Writing Lab, would I furrow my brow in puzzlement over what the teacher 'really' wants?" I suppose we will be getting into this during class, and hopefully in later readings, but I'm just wondering how much is too much direction, and how little is not enough? Maybe I've been too busy acting "non-directive" all last semester to remember how to delegate work.
Right now, I feel like I will be falling back on variations of good prompts I have seen throughout my career. Someone mentioned prompts based on current events (I forget whom), and I think that's a fantastic way to incorporate different disciplines and possible fields of interest. It would give me a chance to keep up with the news as well, which I obviously don't do enough of now (because who needs the news when you have piles and piles of dead authors to keep you busy?).
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