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WTF?

So, I had my teaching interview today and I, truthfully, have no idea how it went.

(Did I mention I had this interview coming up? I did and it was today - it's to become part of the district's English adjunct pool. Oh, and also: I couldn't sleep at all last night).

I mean, I think it went OK - I didn't crash and burn, but I also didn't knock one out of the park.
The whole thing was really really strange. I had to arrive at the college at 7:45 to do a writing sample. I got there at 7:35 and was not allowed to start until 7:45 on the dot. As I waited, however, I was allowed to review the topic on which I'd be writing and the topic on which I would later give a 3-4 minute teaching demonstration.

Writing topic: What is the most urgent need facing college-level writers and how would you address this need in the classroom?
Teaching topic: Name a favorite article, essay or piece of nonfiction work and use it to aid in teaching a lesson

The first one seemed simple enough to deal with (My answer (the short of it): Undeveloped critical thinking / reasoning skills in writing). The latter, however? Can I just say that thinking of something like that off the top of my head kind of floored me - I was expecting the teaching topic to be something more like, 'explain how to approach writing a topic sentence" or something like that, but I guess I'm stupid and naive like that.

Then, the interview was totally strange to me - Sit down in front of a panel, here are the four questions we'll ask you and now we're asking you. And ask they did. And ask is ALL they did. No follow-up questions, no conversation. Just my answer until I felt like I'd adequately covered the topic, the end and on to the next question. By the time I got to the teaching demonstration I felt as if I'd already been teaching for 20 minutes so it was kind of easy to slip into that - although I'm not sure how much my selection of Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" as a way to help students address and overcome fears of writing really impressed them. Sorry, but it was all i could think of at 8am on only cup of coffee - I tried to rack my brain for some Sojourner Truth or Virginia Woolf or whatever but I kept worrying that I'd screw up some key element from "Ain't I a Woman?" or "A Room of One's Own" and so just left it to Anne.

Anyway, fine, thank you and we'll call you next week or the week after.

Weird, weird, weird.

I mean, NO follow-up questions? At all? At any time?

WTF?

4:26 pm - 19.11.07

sounds:
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