by Julia Lewandoski, History Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 After several semesters as a GSI and Reader for history classes, it has become clear to me that a concise, clear, and specific thesis statement is essential to a successful student paper. Developing a strong thesis statement enables students to frame…
by Brian Judge, Political Science Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2018 Challenge: Introduction to Political Theory is either the beginning or the end of students’ engagement with political theory at Cal: interested students may go on to enroll in further political science courses, but (statistically speaking) many will stop after the…
by Eduardo A Escobar, Near Eastern Studies Teaching Effectiveness Award Essay, 2016 The problem of translation remains one of the most enduring challenges for scholars of literary cultures. Translating texts from any historical period can be a challenge, but reading texts from the “dead” civilizations of the ancient world, including…
by Matthew Sergi, English Composition students tend to approach punctuation, grammar, usage, and spelling standards through unquestioning (and usually futile) rote memorization...In my R1B section, I combined Howard Zinn's People's History techniques with a traditional History of the English Language syllabus, demonstrating to my students that the rules of good English have always been, and are still, changing and subject to conflict, politics, and urgent debate.
by David Divita, French Students were expected to learn the phonetic rules of “standard” French, but they were not encouraged to reflect on the historical origins and political implications of such a construct. Whose standard were they learning? Who had the authority to claim it as such? In a course designed to teach “correct” pronunciation, it seemed to me such questions could not remain unasked.
by Hillary Gravendyk, English I was ... impressed to find myself in a room full of well-trained environmental studies, engineering, and biochemistry majors who were fearless (it seemed to me) in the face of those mysteries of math and science that had so baffled me as a college student. But I quickly realized that there was one thing about which these poised young scientists were utterly perplexed, even terrified: poetry.
by Charles Scott Combs, Film Studies Though I teach Roland Barthes’ “Death of the Author” as an illustrious example of how criticism broadens our regard of fictional works, the essay threatens to plunge class thought and discussion into an abyss...The problem I face is the temptation students have to read Barthes’ criticism (and the majority of criticism in general)...as an overly-simplified polytheism of reader pleasure.