November 13, 2024: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Teaching Thoughts

[14years ago this week, this blog was born. For this year’s anniversaryseries, I wanted to highlight a handful of the types of posts that have kept meblogging for nearly a decade and a half now. Leading up to some special weekendtributes!]

In mid-May2011, almost exactly six months into my blogging career, I decided to endthe Spring 2011 semester with a few consecutive posts (starting with thathyperlinked one) reflecting on that semester’s classes, teaching, and otherwork in my roles at Fitchburg State. I won’t pretend to remember if I plannedat that time to make such end-of-semester reflections a consistent part of theblog, nor exactly when I decided to complement them with beginning of semesterposts (I featuredone individual such post in September 2011, but featured the first full pre-semesterseriesin January 2012, and likewise featured a weeklong end of semester seriesthat May). All I know is, it’s been a long time since I’ve started or endeda semester without blogging about it, and I really love how much the two gohand-in-hand for me: the promise of a new semester and the opportunity to expressthose hopes in this space; the culminating moments of a semester and the chanceto think about takeaways from that work here. Other than my sons, teaching andblogging have been my two true constants over the last 14 years, and I lovethat they’re so intertwined.

Next poston posts tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Giveme a great anniversary present and say hi in comments, please!