Courses Taught

Nathan P. Gilmour
Department of English, University of Georgia

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Teaching

What Makes a Gilmour Course a Gilmour Course

Reading from the Inside
The first aim in any of my text-based courses, be it a literature class or a biblical studies class or a philosophy class, is the art of reading. Although the hermeneutics of suspicion stands to be a powerful tool for criticism, the task prior to criticism is always understanding. For undergraduate courses, the first project is to read and articulate a text's projects such that were the author to walk into the classroom, she or he might say, "Yes, that's pretty much what I was after." Any negation that bypasses that arduous step will necessarily be an act of strawman-fighting, and such fights seldom win any prize worth having. Since most of my classes involve at least one research paper, that part of the class will be when students can unleash their critical pens, and I tell every class (and mean it) that I always grade execution and soundness of thought, not politics.

Special Topics Sections
Because English composition classes almost always involve reading assignments as well as written assignments, and because composition is often one of the first classes one takes in college, I have written course proposals to teach Plato in the fall and Hebrew Bible in the spring as the texts that students read in first-year composition. The Hebrew texts, besides standing as interesting in their own rights, the narratives of David and Joseph, the semi-drama of Job, and the lyrical Psalms serve as a fitting curriculum for the introduction to literature element. And Republic is the perfect length for a class in which students spend most of their time writing and revising but have enough semester time to tackle one worthwhile book. In both cases students move on to major classes having written about something worthwhile and in most cases writing better because these texts invite serious engagement and reflection.

Supplemental Online Experiences
In every class I have taught at UGA, I have used WebCT and other online software to extend the teaching experience spatially beyond the classroom and temporally beyond the class’s meeting time. Those students less comfortable with speaking in large classroom settings have often proven more than willing to engage difficult questions and comment in some depth on class readings in threaded discussion forum boards. When I have composition students revise each other’s papers (and I do so early and often), they use either email or database applications (EMMA at UGA) to make the revision process asynchronous and allow students significant time and solitude to do so. Rather than trying to evaluate a paper cold, in a few minutes, upon entering the class, my students have twenty-four hours to make good, substantial comments on their group members’ papers. See Appendix A for a sample WebCT discussion.

Revision Revisions
In lieu of individual mandatory conferences with students, I began the practice of group conferences centered on an early paper. Combined with the asynchronous revision mentioned above, such a conference practice allows me both to interact with students’ writing before they turn in their first major essays and to model revision, to show students how and why one engages with a revision partner’s ideas and prose. Students have responded almost unanimously that such a revision practice has improved their writing and revision skills.