I wear a coat and tie
I stand stone-like before them
they stare at me, they yawn, I am shit
the course is bonehead english
bonehead is two rungs below English One-A
the place is Austin, the University of Texas, the pinnacle of learning
my official position is teaching assistant, a lowly TA in a drip-dry suit
my real job is the elusive phd
for money I teach writing
I know nothing of teaching
I know nothing of writing
my job is to raise these yawners up from certain death
the main teaching tool is the familiar essay
five paragraphs, one intro, one conclusion, three examples
I am 25 years old
the suit is a Haspel, drip-dry
the shirt is an oxford cloth button down
my brogans hurt my feet
my lectures fall on dead ears
I am dying here
six weeks into the term, I leave the suit at home
I get out from behind the desk and invade the aisles
I enter the sacred space of the yawners
close the distance between the priest and the congregation
I find out who’s in my room
we circle words—nouns in red, verbs in green, adjectives in black, pronouns in purple
the act of circling pulls the writers closer to the page
when they connect the circles—green to green, red to red—they feel the webwork of language
feeling the webwork, they write better
I make it through
because they found their language by circling words on the page
and when they found their words, the teaching was easy
Recent Comments