And but so it’s my second week back at work and I’m thrown back into the realm of Freshman English 101 instruction tomorrow. Three 75 minute sections of EN 101, no less, back to back to back. Last year, my first here as a “Big L” Librarian here, I enjoyed my immediate exposure to EN 101s and got to really find my groove as a stand-up comic librarian. I usually had a brief handout, a sketch of what I wanted to show them, and then I took further cues from students and their questions and their topics. Seat of my pants instruction sometimes, but it worked pretty well for me. Students came back later at the ref desk, they got to know me, I got good reviews (full disclosure: I threw candy at them) and best of all, faculty told their colleagues and our instruction stats went up. Hooray.
Now, after a summer’s worth of thought and study and reassignments, we rolled out a new, more active and structured approach to the EN 101 session – while I was out on leave. So, while I’m finding it a little difficult talking to adults instead of toddlers this past week, my forceful return to libraryland is also including a new program for me to teach within. Immediately (this is not a bad thing).
In a change from last year’s classes, I did a bunch of prep work for those sessions today. My colleagues are usually much more formally prepared than I am, and while this is often a strategy that works well for me (performance background, maybe?), new times call for new measures. So, we’ll see how everything goes on November 4th. Change is coming.
