Making courses

This blog served me well to get the Kalamazoo conference paper out, but I've been on the road or focused on other tasks since then.  Today, besides looking for some references for a grant application, I'm committed to tackling another sticky writing task: the first year distance course.  Despite my assurances to Scott, I've been avoiding this.  I like the flexibility and spontaneity of teaching in a classroom environment, and I'm nervous about fixing my ideas on screen, afraid they will look mundane and simplistic when written out.  I know I need to breathe through that - I'm writing for the same first years as I teach, and what seems simple to me is complex to them.  Plus this will give me the chance to fully develop what I always feel rushed in delivering in a class.  it's really the one-on-one teaching mode I wish I could invoke most of the time, and much of the slippage and oversimplification that happens in the classroom comes from having to speak to 40 different people at different points of comprehension.  I told NIcole yesterday that it's about goals - what's the goal of the lesson, and does everything lead towards it.  So for today, that'll be _my_ goal - identify the goal of a lecture and aim for it.  And today's lectures: Intro to poetry!  (I'll be back later if I get stuck)