When I taught middle school, I would always tell my dad when August rolled around, “I’m too busy to go back to work!” (My dad, a man who worked at least 300 days a year, was not sympathetic to my plight.)

This summer is no different!

The three questions your students want you to answer

Way back in April at BYU’s adjunct meeting, I went to a presentation by Jane Birch, assistant director of the Faculty Center, on how to make your class intellectually and spiritually strengthening. Here are three takeaways:

1. Students who report that a class is spiritually strengthening also report that they learned a great deal.

2. The best teachers are their authentic selves in the classroom. Which is not always easy to do; it takes practice—lots of it.

3. Students want to know three things when they come to your class:

   Who are you? They want to know who their teacher is—your journey and why your subject matter is meaningful to you.

   Who am I to you? They want to know how you see them.

   Why does this course matter? Make it known on the first day and throughout the semester.

Listen to Meridith Reed discuss AI on the Y Magazine podcast

While some of us (ahem, me) would prefer to ignore ChatGPT (and AI, in general), Meridith Reed welcomed ChatGPT into her classroom and helped her students learn how to use it as a tool, not as an author. Listen to Meridith on Y Magazine’s podcast episode “Writing and Teaching with ChatGPT” 

You can also check out other BYU professors’ thoughts on ChatGPT, including Jon Ostenson’s, in Y Magazine’s Spring 2023’s article, “I, Chatbot.”

It’s my job to help adjuncts!

Send me an email if you have any questions or concerns or need some help—it’s my job as adjunct liaison to help you! You can reach me at my new professional address [email protected] (or my address formerly known as semi-professional, [email protected])

Stuff for your calendar

Normally, stuff for your calendar includes stuff from the university, the English department, and me, the Adjunct-in-Chief, but as most of us have entered our favorite time of year, it’s not as robust as it usually is.

Also here’s a link to the department calendar if you care to see the future: The English Department Calendar. It’s looking quite empty right now.

JUNE

Friday, June 2: BYU’s General Education Academy—if you’re going and hear something good, please send your notes to me so I can share it with all!

Monday, June 12 at 11 am in B112 JFSB: Work Smarter, Not Harder with Some Curriculum Design Knowledge. Learn from IP&T’s Jason McDonald about “design thinking” and ways to incorporate flexibility in your class so you can roll better with whatever the universe throws at you. RSVP TODAY or by Wednesday, June 7 for in-person with lunch or at work/home with Zoom link.

June: A Scheduling Survey. Watch your inbox for this survey—and fingers crossed that it arrives before summer ends! We—the English Department, University Writing, and I—hope to use the information we collect to create a document that lays out the scheduling process and answers FAQs.

JULY

July: University Writing Training. More information to come!

AUGUST

August: The Great English Department Syllabi Workshop. Want to learn what the research says about syllabi? Want to create a more effective syllabus? Want your students to use your syllabus during and after the first week of the semester? Join us as syllabi expert Julie Swallow, our own College of Humanities’ Center of Teaching and Learning consultant, shows us ways to make our syllabi matter to our students. There will be a Zoom option!

August: Kick off the new academic year with a meeting! A fun and engaging meeting! And maybe some training! Stay tuned!