A New Semester

I have some high hopes for the coming school year, here at Southern Virginia University. Those hopes include some significant scholarship, but most importantly, I plan on taking big strides toward making myself into a more effect teacher. I have a lot of exciting ideas that should make learning fun but also challenging. And make no mistake, if learning is not both, it simply cannot take place at a sustainable level. This Fall semester I am teaching two Classics of Western Literature; this time, I will finish with Walt Whitman, and I am excited to see how that turns out. I am teaching a composition course, in which I have plans for not only developing some scholarship related to pedagogy, but I also have a radical plan for teaching students how to make better arguments in their written work. Finally, I am teaching British Literature I, a survey of British Literature from 600 to 1800. That is a lot of ground to cover, but I still work hard to make it manageable and exciting. The semester starts next week, and while I have some syllabi to finalize, I am ready and excited to get started. Even Leah Marie will teach a course this semester. Her State and Local Politics finally has enough students to carry, and I am equally excited for her. She's such a good teacher, and I know that students will love her knowledge and style.