A Look Into: A Re-Vision of Teaching

A Look Into: A Re-Vision of Teaching

Reflection is an important part of the writing process. By looking closely at the method that I used in order to arrive at my finished piece, A Re-Vision of Teaching, I am able to think about the individual steps that I took and to evaluate the effectiveness of my process. My writing began in the first week of October when I received the essay #2 assignment, which posed many questions about art. In addition to describing a piece of artwork, the assignment called for students to use personal experience, and it also asked for students to go beyond opinions to make arguments about a work of art that is interesting to others. Taking these requirements into consideration, I decided that I wanted to write about something that was significant to my life and relevant to what I am studying≠teaching. Then, I narrowed this topic down by choosing one experience that would serve as my individual piece of art, the lesson I taught on Adrienne Rich. I did not know what assertion I wanted to make, so I decided to work with this writing assignment in a few different ways.

First, I took action. To begin thinking about the assignment, I read through the sample essays on art. I subsequently brainstormed different ideas that I wanted to discuss in my piece. I created a list of some universal concepts that are involved in the creation of all pieces of art including: commission, creativity/ inspiration, tools, and critiques. I also thought about the way that art inspires more art. Not all of my initial ideas made it into the final paper, but this list-making technique was very helpful for me. In addition to making this master list, I also thought back to the actual lesson that I wanted to describe, the Adrienne Rich/ feminism lesson. I wrote down all observations that I remembered from the lesson itself, and critiques that Iπve heard/ developed myself. My biggest critique was that I did not encourage student participation or discussion. As I continued to think about this paper and heard that two students had used Rich in their papers on education, I realized what I wanted my assertion to be.