A conversation starter, I hope...
Let's talk about what makes each of you good at what you do. I will start with this very corny question:
Can you describe a formative learning experience of your own that you believe led you to become an amazing English instructor?
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I didn't start out as an English teacher. I started out teaching computers, and frankly, I'm not quite sure how I got to be a teacher at all except that my friend Mary Clifton told me they needed instructors where she worked and I was unemployed.
Anyway, thinking about memorable formal learning experiences, I would have to give props (do the kids still say give props?) to my high school English teacher who used to keep me after class and sneak me extra novels to read that weren't on the official reading list -- I specifically remember Their Eyes Were Watching God as one, and maybe One Hundred Years of Solitude? Getting those books from her and talking to her after class reminded me that teachers are people too. As a teacher now, I know that she probably enjoyed having a student who actually enjoyed reading for once.
I guess any time a teacher recognized something I was doing as extraordinary helped foster my identity as a writer. It's something I struggle to do as an instructor -- spend as much time praising the good students as I do hunting down the truants or working with the students who hate writing.
I'm going to stop now but I could go on (and on and on).
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