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Ball State University

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She is a cool teacher! An Ethnographic Study of Teaching Writing

A S H E R J O H N

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She is a cool teacher!

An Ethnographic Study of Teaching Writing

____________________________________

Asher John

Ball State University

Muncie, IN. 2009

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To

The Writing Program

at

Ball State University

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Table of Content

Preface v

Acknowledgement vii

1. Who am I? 1

2. Is she really a teacher? 2

3. This is a community! 3

4. Joining the community 4

5. Meeting the people 12

6. I conclude 18

7. Appendices 20

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Preface

The way teachers dress, communicate, and act in a classroom plays an important role in their teaching and the learning process of the students. This study shows that how the way a teacher conducts herself in a classroom influences the learning process of her students.

Teachers come in all kinds and colors and they all have their personalities and idiosyncrasies. All these things influence the way students perceive these teachers and learn from them. This study looks at a teacher who has a unique style (at least I think so) of teaching. She is more of an actress in the class room than a teacher. She tries to instill her personal excitement and enthusiasm into her students through her ‚wowing‛, ‚hooing‛ and ‚ahaaing‛ in the class. She does not walk in the class but dances; she doesn’t talk but sings. Her every action in class exudes energy and she seems to be involved in a perpetual struggle to get her students excited and involved in the class. For me it was a totally new and strange experience because I come from a culture where teachers are considered to be and expected to be very serious.

This project in the words of Dr. McKinney is ‚a teeny tiny‛ ethnography and each of the students taking her ENG 605 (Foundations for Teaching Writing/Composition) had to observe an undergraduate writing class for two to three weeks and write a mini ethnography. She suggested that it would be better if we find a class where a new unit was starting and we should observe this unit in its entirety. It was not difficult to find a class where a new unit was starting actually only one email sent to the entire writing faculty at BSU was enough, I was bombarded by invitations and offers by the faculty to come and observe their classes. I chose R’s class because this was the class which suited my schedule and requirements for this small project. Please see Appendix-1 to see the exchange of emails between R and me before I started working on this project.

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Acknowledgement

There are many people who helped me in completing this study. The first and

foremost is R, the teacher, who responded very promptly to my email requesting a permission to observe her class. She was a great help throughout the study and

provided me with all the necessary information and documents and artifacts required for this study, so my sincerest and deepest gratitude to R. I also want to

thank Dr. McKinney who motivated and guided me for the study and provided very

constructive and positive feedback. My thanks to all the students in the class I observed, they were really nice to me and had no problems with me coming to their

class and observing them. At the end my special thanks to Bridgette, Tristan, Rothman and Jessica who were kind enough to take time out of their busy schedules

to answer my questions regarding the course.

1. WHO AM I?

There are times when I wonder that who I am, what I am doing here, and why I am

doing this all; but honestly speaking these are rhetorical questions and only come to the surface on those sleepless nights when after trying to sleep for hours and hours

and failing in doing so, one starts questioning the very existence of things and one’s own self. But to make matters easier and straighter for the purposes of clarity and

record, I am Asher John and I come from Pakistan. Pakistan is a multi lingual and

multi ethnic society and maybe that is why I am so interested in languages and ethnicities of the people I come across. I am here in the US working on my PhD in

Linguistics at Ball State University. It has been a wonderful experience and I am enjoying it.

I call the US a different Planet because it is so different from where I come. Sometimes I think the only similarity is the sky and everything else, people, flora and

fauna, buildings, and what not, is so different. This study is about these differences as well and I focus on the way the teacher conducts herself in the classroom, it is so

different from how teachers conduct themselves back home.

One might be thinking if I am a student of Linguistics then what I am doing in a

course about teaching writing. The answer is destiny, which brought me to teaching writing. The university awarded me a teaching assistantship which meant that I was

to teach writing to undergraduate students. In order to prepare teaching assistants

for the teaching job, the department of English at BSU makes all the new TAs to take ENG 605 and ID 601 courses as required courses. These courses proved to be a great

learning experience for me and I learnt a lot about writing and the latest research in this field.

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2. IS SHE REALLY A TEACHER?

I have seen more teachers than most of the people have seen sparrows! (I borrowed

and adapted this expression from Chekhov, one of my favorite playwrights). Both my parents are teachers and then hundreds whom I call teachers and then hundreds

whom I call colleagues, they are all in one league and that is the league of teachers. Based on my experiences with all these people who are called teachers back home

and even here in the US I had a totally different concept of a teacher until I met R.

R is a 27 years old graduate student at BSU. She is working on her PhD in English

Literature and loves to call herself an ‚English Professor‛. She is an exciting character and has her own way of conducting her class; for me this style is more like

entertaining the class than teaching. She seems to get too excited at times and then

tries to get her students involved in this excitement of hers but in these two weeks I have not seen her succeeding a lot in her quest to get her students share her

excitement. She tries to get them involved by ‚wowing‛, ‚hoooing‛ and ‚ahhaaing‛ but her students hardly ever join, only once during these three weeks a girl joined

her. Many a time she would say to her students at the end of ‚hooing‛ and ‚wowing‛

that maybe they are not very excited about it. Her movements in the class are quite interesting as well, she dances more than she walks in class and her hands are always

moving in a perpetual dance move. She calls herself ‚a little hippie‛ and I don’t know what to be ‚a little hippie‛ means.

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3. THIS IS A COMMUNITY

This is an ENG 103-xx class, this class is my community under study. The community consists of 15 girls and 10 guys. 22 out of 25 are Caucasian and

remaining 3 are Hispanic. There are no internationals and blacks in the community. The students are a regular bunch of first year Americans. They are all

freshmen/women and this is their first semester in the university.

I don’t know a lot about them but I guess and I profile them in my imagination, I

know somehow that most of them are from Indiana and they seem to fit the mould called middle class. They are all new to the university environment and are still

learning to cope with the duties and privileges of this new life. The class meets in the

basement of one of the dorms and that is why sometimes some of them seem to have walked straight form their beds to the class. The class meets at 5 pm and this is quite

a good excuse for them to look tired and bored in this class.

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4. JOINING THE COMMUNITY

I was a little late on the first day because it was hard for me to find the room where I

was supposed to go, I had never been to the building where this class room was and the numbering on the rooms was quite confusing as well. Anyway I made it to the

class and R had just started, when I reached the class room she introduced me to the class and I sat on an empty chair in front of the class. The class room is really creepy

and chairs and tables are put and set in a way that although I was sitting in the front

still I could not see all the students and some students were never visible to me. I could imagine that it would be hard for the teacher to walk around in the class

(please see a sketch of the class room attached as Appendix-2). The room was cold for me (colder rooms for me in the US can be pretty hot for the people from the US,

so cold and hot are really relative and I won’t mention this again).

R starts introducing the new unit. The unit is about writing and compiling annotated

bibliographies. She explains the project to the students but the students do not seem very excited about anything. They look bored and sleepy and it seems as they have

been forced to come and attend the class. She is trying very hard to get them involved

and excited about the new unit but they seem to be lost in some other world. This one guy sitting in front of me seems to be dozing; the girl sitting close to the door is

playing with her cell.

After introducing the new unit R suggests a preview of all the work they have done

throughout the semester in this class. She types the word ‘Thesis’ on the computer screen and asks what it means, there are different answers for it and she keeps on

typing the answers, one girl suggests that a thesis should be arguable, another says it should be revelatory and a guy says that a thesis should be focused. When she asks

that what is meant by ‘focused’ guy D says it means on track. Then she asks the

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question about the elements of rhetoric and girl E says it is ‘ethos, pathos, and

lathos’. Those who understand what she is saying laugh and then she asks that what mistake the girl E has made, no one answers and she proceeds on to write ‘pathos,

logos and ethos’ on the board and explains that the mistake by girl E was that instead of ‘logos’ she said ‘lathos’. The preview of these terms and other things which they

had leant in this semester continues and the teacher writes a term on the white board

and students try to explain it. One by one they discuss ethos, logos and pathos. Then the teacher introduces genre in the discussion and asks the students to describe the

different genres of writing. The guy D answers that genre is different topics in writing. The teacher writes different genres of writing on the white board and

students help her in writing.

At the end of the class she divides them into small groups of 3-4 people and these

groups are to work together till the end of the semester and do the final project together. The project is writing and composing an annotated bibliography.

When I entered that cold room on that murky evening for the second time it was still few minutes to the start of the class. They were all talking about upcoming

Halloween. The teacher is throwing Halloween candies at students. Students were

doing different things in the class. This one girl who always looks very serious is looking extra serious today and it seems that she is not happy with Halloween

discussion. Another girl enters the class and she looks totally bored. She sits in her chair and starts playing with her cell phone. They are talking about Halloween

costumes; the teacher as usual is trying to be extra funny and good humored. One of

the girls is quiet and when asked by the teacher about the reason of her being quiet she says that she is not feeling well.

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The clock strikes 5 and teacher tells them that it is time for her power point

presentation on MLA style. She announces this in her usual excited style and starts dancing towards the computer. She does the usual ‚hooing‛ and ‚wowing‛ about her

power point but this time adds ‚paaan paaan it is R’s power point‛. She tells them that different citing styles in academia can be a ‚pain in the ass‛. Then she talks a

little bit about plagiarism and asks the students if they know what plagiarism is. Girl

B says it is stealing. After this she explains the sense of property in the world of academia to her students. Then she starts her presentation and explains that how a

book is cited in an academic paper. She shows them the conventions and then asks one of the students to come forward and show her that how a book is cited in an

academic paper. She asks different questions about different things related to

citations and referencing. The notable thing in all this was her style. It was really interesting that it never becomes ‚serious‛. As usual she dances and sings although

nobody takes part in her enthusiasm but they seem to enjoy it. At the end of the class she once again asks them to go to their respective groups and discuss their plans with

their peers and exchange their contact information. At the end of the class they hand

over the gathered information about the groups to the teacher and leave.

On my third day of observation the teacher starts the class three minutes in advance and announce her plans about the coming Thursday and tells her students that she

would not be able to take the class on that day because she is flying out of the

country that day. She tells them that she is going to Montreal and she wants them to attend the Library session. She emphasizes on their attendance in this session and

tells them that it is going to be very important for their last project. Then when it is time for the class she takes the attendance and starts the class. She shows the groups

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and their respective members on the big screen. The students have been divided into

the following groups:

1. Jordon, Chase, Holy 2. Luke, Tyler, Kelly

3. Natalie, Holly, Nathan

4. Nancy, Alfredo, Shelby 5. Bridgette, Hannah, Ian

6. Brittan, Joe, Ashley 7. Abbey, Rothman, Tristan, Hayley

She starts the proceedings of the class in her usual dramatic style and shouts for the enthusiasm from the class but does not get any response. She uses different antics to

get students excited and attracted to her presentation but to no avail. Then she tells

them that how tough it is to be a full time PhD student and teaching two writing courses. Then she comes back to the topic of the day and asks them that what two

formats they have been discussing. Girl C answers and she proceeds with her presentation. This time she shows them how to cite a source which has been taken

from a website. She asks them to write down the correct citation form in their

notebooks and walks around in the class while students are working on the citation. Then she shows them how to cite an online article and etc. The class continues and

she keeps on talking and showing them how to cite different sources and sometimes asks the students to come forward and write on the white board the correct citation

of different sources. While she is doing all this some students are sitting and doing

nothing, one girl is sipping on her energy drink although she is not supposed to bring any food or drinks in this class room because this is a computer lab. Another

guy is sleeping while she is explaining that how to quote verbatim.

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At the end of the power point presentation the teacher wants to clap and starts doing

so, but no one in the class joins her and she keeps on clapping anyway while doing her usual ‚wowing‛ and ‚hooing‛. After this she starts the next power point which

she claims to be the review of the previous power point presentation. This power point also shows that how different sources are cited in academic papers. While

doing presentation she walks around in the class and tries to engage the students in

this presentation. At the end of the class she asks the representatives from the groups to talk to her and tell her about their topics.

On the fourth day of my observation students were to meet in the library. When I

reached the library they were all waiting down stairs near the ‚naked lady’s‛ statue. I

joined them and stood there for some time. Then a staffer from the library services came and asked them to follow her. They followed her without any questions and I

followed them. When all were seated in the conference room, she introduces herself and tells them about the presentation. She encourages them to ask questions but

they keep quiet. She also tells them her email address and says that they can email

her as well. Then she asks them to logon to the computers but not to their face book pages. She gives them a virtual tour of the library’s home page. She shows them that

how they can contact her and other library staffers. She shows them that how they can find different sources online and in the library. They are all quiet and attentive.

Then she asks them that what kind of assignment they are working on and what are

the requirements, one girl answers ‘we don’t know‛ and they all laugh.

They seem interested in the presentation but in spite of repeated invitations they do

not ask any questions. Then the presenter changes her tone and starts telling them that when she wants people to listen to her they do not listen to her rather they while

away their time in her presentations. She asks that how many of them hate citing

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sources and almost 15 hands rise above and she tells them that she hates citing as

well. She asks them if their instructor is tough about citing and they say ‚yes, she is very tough‛. She suggests that they can copy paste the citation style and it will save

them a lot of time. She shows them different sources of the library and at the end once again invites them to ask questions but no one asks any question and the

session comes to an end.

On the fifth day of my observation R starts the class with the announcement that

there will be no power point presentation today. Then she announces that she is extending the deadline to submit the annotated bibliography. Then she asks all of

them to close their eyes and keep their heads down, they all comply. She asks those

to raise their hands who do not want the dead line to be extended from Nov. 19 to Dec. 10, no one raises; then she asks those to raise their hands who want the dead

line to be extended and all of them raise their hands in unison. After this she starts the class and asks them to log on to the computers in the class. She shows them that

how they can add files to their group projects online and again hollers and asks for

questions. No one asks any question and she continues with her presentation. Then she tells them that how they can make a web site and tells them that this is a

collaborative project. The project is named as:

Group Multi-Modal Website!

Then she starts talking about that how many of them might not pass the class and

tells that there is only one student who is in danger of not passing the class. She also

tells them that they are her best class and they don’t need to worry about their final grades. She tells them that they are ‚rockin n rollin‛ and 50% of their final grade will

be based on this final project. Then she starts explaining the different requirements

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of the final project and tells them that what they can put on the web site and what

they cannot. She tells them that they cannot put their naked pictures on the website. She advises them to create their website on weebly.com. Then she asks them to go

into their groups and start talking about their website. While they are in their groups she walks around and answers their occasional questions. One of the groups is

discussing whether you can carry pepper spray on you in Washington DC. One girl

says that her mother was arrested because she was carrying this spray on her. R joins the conversation and later tells them to talk about their website. They keep on

talking in their groups till the end of the class.

This is the sixth time I am in this class. It is the last time observing the class and I feel

a bit relieved and comfortable. It has been an interesting experience observing a class where I was neither a student nor a teacher. I enter the class and there is still some

time to start. R is already in the class and students are entering one by one. At the hour she takes attendance and starts the class in her usual style.

‚All right let’s do it‛, this is the announcement for starting the class and then she asks them to go to their respective groups and work on their projects. She tells them

that the purpose of the activity today is to find good resources and next time when

they meet they are to bring one of their five annotations to the class. She also tells them that how easy it is for them to get 100% on this assignment and she is always

there to help them. They go into their groups and start talking about their projects. They seem interested in the whole thing and talk to one another about what they are

going to do and what is going to be their topic of the research. Some groups are not

that enthusiastic and start slowly. She walks around and talks to people in this group or that group. They seem quite happy with this and have their questions ready for

her. She mingles with them readily and let them ask anything and tries to help them

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in a very friendly way. They work on deciding that what their sources are going to

be. At the end of the class each group comes up with a topic and a list of proposed resources.

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5. MEETING THE PEOPLE

It was interesting to observe this class and this observation raised many question in

my mind, I was wondering that how students felt about the whole thing and what they thought of the teacher and the way she conducts herself in the class. They were

not very responsive and overtly interactive in the class and never joined in her ‚hooing‛ and ‚wowing‛ but still showed interest in the work and were doing their

work pretty regularly. To seek the answers to these questions I requested interviews

with the students, there were no volunteers so I had to go and ask them personally if they would liked to be interviewed by me for the purposes of this study. Ultimately

four agreed to be interviewed (Please see the interview questionnaire in Appendix-3). On the given time and day only one showed up and it took me many days to find the

remaining three and cajole them to be interviewed. Ultimately I succeeded in

interviewing four of them. These four included three girls and one guy. The interview was based on a very general questionnaire and there were 11 questions.

Interviews were not taped but rather I took notes..

The summaries of their interviews are given below.

Bridgette: Bridgette is a freshman and this is her first semester, she wants to be an

athletic trainer and she was the only one to show up for the interview on the given date and time. She said that she expected this course to be a lot of writing and writing

more like a college, like long papers and etc. She was happy that her expectations

had been fulfilled and actually the course exceeded her expectations and she had learnt a lot in this course. She had taken writing courses in high school and this was

her first writing course in college.

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Answering the question that what she thought of the teacher as a teacher she said,

‚She is very opinionated and she has very strong opinions, she is someone who will not take crap, she is very educated and she knows what she is talking about and

overall she is a good teacher and I have learnt a lot from her‛.

Bridgette thought that R’s teaching style was really exciting and she was very

interactive and different from any teacher that Bridgette had ever come across. When asked how she is different, Bridgette said, ‚She is very involved in you and lets you

do the things your way‛.

Bridgette was of the opinion that teacher’s antics and dancing in the class were

exciting and did not bother her or affect her learning process negatively. On the question that if her style is exciting then why doesn’t she join her in her ‚hooing‛

and ‚wowing‛. Bridgette answered, ‚I don’t know, I enjoy it, it’s pretty inspiring

and exciting but I don’t do it‛.

Bridgette does not like R’s power points and was happy that there won’t be any more power points. Bridgette puts R at 8 from a scale of 1-10 and says that she is very

educated, she is very excited, she knows her job and she has good command on her

subject but still she is not perfect.

Tristan: Tristan is a freshman and this is her first semester in the college. She wants to major in hospitality. Tristan expected the course to be lot easier boy was of the

opinion that the students had been pushed a lot by the teacher. Answering the

question that whether her expectations have been fulfilled Tristan says, ‚sometimes I enjoy the course and sometimes I think that the professor is very tough and she

wants us to write what she likes us to write‛.

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Tristan has taken high school writing courses as well and thinks of R as a good

teacher. Tristan says, ‚R brings a lot of enthusiasm to the class and she pays more attention to her students than other teachers do‛.

Tristan is of the opinion that in one to one meeting R is a totally different person and

even made her cry in one of those meetings. About R’s teaching style Tristan says

‚she wants to bring enthusiasm to class and wants her students to get involved when she wants to bring a new topic‛.

On the question that how different she is from other teachers Tristan says, ‚She is different by Gosh and she is enthusiastic and exciting, and I have never met a teacher

like her before‛.

Tristan thinks it is funny and exciting to be in her class. Answering the question that

how her teaching style affected her Tristan says, ‚I did some research in high school but here I have to follow a strict regime and you have to be creative and still follow

the guide lines very strictly a swell‛.

Tristan is also of the opinion that teacher’s style is exciting. Answering the question

that if it is exciting then why she doesn’t join her she says, ‚I am usually talking to the people around and I think R is smart and this makes me afraid of her‛.

Tristan says that she has learnt a lot in this course and especially the group work has really been helpful to her. Tristan does not like one on one meeting with R because

she can be very tough in these meetings and made her cry once. She rates R 6 on a scale of 1-10 because she thinks that in one on one meeting she is very tough.

Jessica: Jessica is a freshman and plans to be graphic designer. She is the serious girl which I have already mentioned. I was looking forward to have her comments on R’s

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teaching style. Answering the question about her expectations of the course Jessica

says, ‚I was expecting to read and write a lot but I did not know or expect that we were going to do a web page in this course‛.

Jessica’s expectations for this course have been fulfilled and she thinks that they have

written a lot and especially MLA stuff and etc. Jessica likes R as teacher because R is

like none of Jessica’s high school teachers and according to Jessica ‚R is random and crazy‛.

On her teaching style Jessica says that she likes to get involved and interactive but she doesn’t like R’s power point presentations but likes the fact that R keeps her

students interested in the class activities. Jessica says, ‚R is very different from other teachers and does a lot of power points and pays individual attention and holds

personal conferences with the students‛.

About her teaching style Jessica thinks, ‚It helps me a lot and I stay focused during

her classes‛.

When I asked Jessica that if she likes her style so much then why she doesn’t take

part in ‚hooing‛ and ‚wowing‛, Jessica says, ‚I am not like that and I cannot do that but I like it and have no problems with it‛.

Jessica thinks that it has been a great learning experience for her and she has been enjoying it and she has learnt many new things in this class. Jessica does not like R’s

power points and thinks everything else is alright. She puts R at 7 on a scale of 1-10 because R is interesting and Jessica likes enthusiasm in the class and R has taught her

a lot of new things in this course.

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Rothman: Rothman is a freshman and this is his first semester in the university and

he is still undecided about his major. Rothman expected this course to be a lot of reading and writing and thought he would be typing a lot but did not know and

expect that he would be making a web site. Rothman says, ‚The course has fulfilled my expectations and it is a college level course and I have done reading and writing

but I was not expecting to make websites and that is really new and exciting for me‛.

Rothman took advanced level writing courses at high school but feels that it is totally

different ball game at the university. Talking about teacher he becomes very reflective and says, ‚I think teacher is pretty good but her power points are boring

other than that she is pretty cool‛.

Rothman hasn’t met a college professor like R, and says, ‚She is very interactive and

she gets students excited and tries to know students by their names and she is the

only professor who knows my name‛.

Rothman did not have any idea before he met her that what he could expect from a college professor. Talking about R’s teaching style Rothman says, ‚Her teaching

style is pretty great and cool‛.

On R’s one on one meetings with students Rothman opines ‚she is really great, she

takes you to task, tries to break you up and its pretty cool‛.

Rothman thinks that R likes her job and seems happy to be in it. He thinks it is

better to have her as their professor than having a monotonous professor. He thinks that it is cool that she is their professor. About R’s person Rothman has this to say, ‚I

think that she is lot more laid back as compared to other teachers and she is not very

serious and wants her students to get involved in the class activities and that is really cool‛.

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About the teacher’s style Rothman says, ‚It doesn’t stick and sometimes I don’t

understand that what she means and I think it has nothing to do with her lively spirit‛.

On answering the question that why he doesn’t take part in her enthusiasm

Rothman says, ‚I am not sure and I think students are excited in her class but maybe

some people are not used to her style and most of the times I am really tired in her class because it’s in the evening‛.

Rothman thinks that this course has been a pretty hard leaning experience because they had to do a lot of new stuff and is happy to be a part of a group and is excited

about their upcoming project which is about making a website. He gives R an 8 on a scale of 1-10 because she is a good teacher and she is always ready to ‚stick it in your

brain‛.

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6. I CONCLUDE

When I entered the class (community) I had no idea that what I was going to

observe. I thought that I would be observing some writing but as there was no writing going on I had to observe something. When I saw the teacher and the way

she taught I became interested in her teaching style (although it will be very difficult for me to define that what is teaching style and what is R’s teaching style but here I

mean the way she conducts herself in the class). This curiosity about her teaching

style resulted in this study. I observed her class for three weeks and out of these three weeks she was in the class five times, the only time she was not there she was out of

the country attending a conference. R has been very consistent in her style during these three weeks, she is lively, she is enthusiastic and she is excited and she wants

her students to be part of her excitement. This liveliness in spirit exudes a particular

energy and her students around her can feel this energy and share it with her. The students seem to like her style because it is different as is obvious from their

interviews, it is also very personal and involving and students feel at ease with her. She tries to give her students a persona which is easily accessible and can be

identified with. I could not believe when I heard that she could make her students

cry as well but maybe this fact belies that she is the one who is in control of things and can make her students cry when she wants and can make them laugh when she

wants.

This teaching style was new to me as I come from a society and a culture where

hierarchy is everything and a teacher is supposed to be a ‚teacher‛ not anything else. But R proves that teachers cannot be stereotyped, and it is not that teacher is dry dull

and monotonous person; contrary to this all a teacher can be very informal and maybe frank with her students. This informality and frankness not only makes a

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teacher more accessible but also teaches her students some very important lessons.

This class was not participating in R’s hollering and shouting in the class, why, I have no reason maybe they were too shy to do it or maybe they were too new to this

kind of teaching and did not know how to respond to it. As far as R’s power point presentations are concerned I really don’t find anything wrong with them rather I

think they are quite informative and helpful. I do not know why her students don’t

like these power points. One reason for not liking her power points can be that students have become so used to her active and enthusiastic style that during the

power points they feel that she has become distant and inaccessible.

The conclusions which I can make from this is that it is not the way that a teacher

teaches or carries herself it is the level of her commitment with her profession and with her students which matters.

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Appendix-1

Correspondence between R and me:

Me: I am Asher John and I need to observe a writing class in order to work on a class project for Dr. McKinney's course. Can you please tell me if you are going to start a

new unit in one of your writing classes this week? If you are starting a new unit will it

be alright for me to come and observe your class for two weeks? I will really be thankful for this help.

R: It just so happens that I WILL be starting a new unit with my ENG 103 classes

tomorrow. If you'd be interested, I wouldn't mind having you come and observe me,

though I have to warn you that this unit will be a little boring for you. They're compiling an annotated Bibliography, so it'll be a lot of formatting, practicing

summaries, and MLA stuff. My two sections meet in LA 13s, at 3:30 and 5:00, T-Th. Let me know if you're interested!

Me: Thanks for the prompt response; I really appreciate your invitation. I think most probably I will come to observe your class tomorrow. I will confirm this by noon on

Tuesday. Thanks for everything.

R: Great! Let me know if you can make it! 3:30-4:45 or 5:00-6:15 in LA 13s.

Me: I think 5:00 pm will be best for me and I will be there tonight. Once again thanks

for the help.

21

Apeendix-2

The Class Room

22

Appendix-3

Interviews Questions

Name: Year: Major:

1. What were your expectations of the course?

2. Were your expectations fulfilled?

3. Did you have any writing course before this course?

4. What is your opinion about the teacher OR what do you think of the teacher?

5. What would you say about your teacher’s teaching style?

6. How is she different from other teachers?

7. How does her teaching style affect your learning process?

8. If her style is exciting then why don’t you join her in hollering and stuff like

that?

9. What kind of learning experience this unit was for you?

10. Is there anything you do not like about her teaching or teaching style?

11. Where do you rate her as teacher on a scale of 1-10? Why?

Asher John is a doctoral student in Linguistics at Ball

State University. His primary research focus is on

Punjabi. Travelling and reading are his favorite

pastimes. Asher is intrigued by Pakistani society and

politics and he tries to keep a close watch on socio-

political discourse in Pakistan and South Asia. He is a

sports lover and follows international cricket

regularly.

Ball State University

Muncie, IN. 2009