{"id":241065,"date":"2025-05-14T07:56:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T07:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-may-14-2025-spring-semester-reflections-first-year-writing-ii\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T07:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T07:56:30","slug":"americanstudies-may-14-2025-spring-semester-reflections-first-year-writing-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241065","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: May 14, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: First-Year Writing II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body-2543342123283290357\" itemprop=\"description articleBody\">\n<p>[About halfway<br \/>\nthrough the Spring 2025 semester, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legacy.com\/us\/obituaries\/dailyprogress\/name\/stephen-railton-obituary?id=57716139\">I<br \/>\nlost my Dad<\/a>. While that was of course the semester\u2019s most defining moment,<br \/>\nit also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching in<br \/>\nrelationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I\u2019ve ever<br \/>\nknown. So for this semester reflections series, I want to highlight one moment<br \/>\nfrom each class where I\u2019d say I particularly felt my Dad\u2019s presence.]<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">I\u2019m sure<br \/>\nmy Dad taught First-Year Writing in his early years at the University of<br \/>\nVirginia, but because of the way that institution and English Department work,<br \/>\noverall and in terms of seniority and so on, I believe it had been many many<br \/>\nyears since he had done so (he taught at Uva for 45 years, so I do mean many<br \/>\nmany!). As a result, I certainly connect my Literature courses and teaching to<br \/>\nhim more fully than I do my Writing sections (which I have at least one of, and<br \/>\noften as this semester two of, every semester). But when I returned to my FYW<br \/>\nclassrooms on the Thursday of the week he passed, I had the chance to pay an<br \/>\novert tribute to my Dad and his work: as part of a unit on analyzing multimedia<br \/>\ntexts we read a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2010\/09\/14\/magical_negro_trope\/\">Matthew<br \/>\nZoller Seitz article<\/a> on the \u201cMagical Negro\u201d stereotype, and so I got to<br \/>\nshare with the students my Dad\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/utc.iath.virginia.edu\/interpret\/exhibits\/tomming\/tomminghp.html\">excellent<br \/>\nanalysis of \u201cTomming<\/a>\u201d as both a precursor to that stereotype and a way to<br \/>\nanalyze it in cultural works. And then we watched the Key &amp; Peele sketch \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jInlO6-JTww\">Magical Negro Fight<\/a>,\u201d<br \/>\nbecause it\u2019s very relevant to that conversation but also because my Dad really<br \/>\nloved all things Key &amp; Peele. I can\u2019t say exactly which of these moments<br \/>\nfelt most linked to my Dad, because in truth they all were, thoughtfully and<br \/>\nhumorously and movingly. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">Next reflection<br \/>\ntomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">Ben<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 12.0pt; tab-stops: 142.5pt;\"><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\">PS. Spring<br \/>\nsemester reflections you\u2019d share?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[About halfway through the Spring 2025 semester, I lost my Dad. While that was of course the semester\u2019s most defining moment, it also allowed me to reflect for the remaining weeks on my own teaching in relationship to one of the most dedicated and talented teachers I\u2019ve ever known. So for this semester reflections series, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,18182,14721,15931,1448,2456],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-241065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-firstyear","tag-reflections","tag-semester","tag-spring","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>AmericanStudies: May 14, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: First-Year Writing II - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241065\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: May 14, 2025: Spring Semester Reflections: First-Year Writing II - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[About halfway through the Spring 2025 semester, I lost my Dad. 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