TA Tuesdays: A new pattern emerges

I thought Tuesdays might be a smart day to reflect on the TA adventure and perhaps to vent about the events of my Monday morning teaching experiences. Yesterday I taught for the first time this term, once at 8am and then again at 10. I was surprisingly nervous before the first class began. I think the long summer break had me feeling rusty. 

The 8am class got the squeaky version of my performance. I covered all of the important first day stuff, but it wasn't as snazzy as my typical style. I talked too much and didn't get them engaged enough, but it was too early to think on my feet. It went ok, but not stellar. I give myself a B. 

During the hour between the two classes it occurred to me that the They Say, I Say templates we use in class are very much like a mad lib. They are in fact so clever that you can insert almost any topic into them and come up with something very arguable. To prove this I started ranting about Twinkies. 

Observe (the bold is my addition):

In recent discussions of snack foods, a controversial issue has been whether Twinkies are an acceptable snack. On the one hand, some argue that Twinkies are not healthy. From this perspective, it is clear that if a snack must be healthy, Twinkies will not qualify. On the other hand, however, others argue that a snack need not be healthy to be acceptable and satisfying. In the words of one of this view's main proponents, "A snack is an occasional item, thus a tasty Twinkie is totally acceptable". According to this view, the fact that a snack is a small item, not a staple of the diet, means that anything food in small quantity can be appropriate. 

Realizing this I decided to have the 10am students try this out. I had them get into small groups and gave them 5-7 minutes to draft something. They came up with some really good introductions. Topics included the USC/OSU game, logging, Batman, and McCain v. Obama. 

Tomorrow we'll talk about paper one and MLA. So much to do...so little time.