Designing Effective Writing Prompts for English

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1.7, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Southern Illinois University at Carbondale - English Department), course: English Composition Pedagogy and Practice, language: English, abstract: A teacher has to create a work-friendly environment that engages students to participate in and become a part of the classroom activities. Since I have had some teaching experience, I know that this is the most daunting task the teacher is confronted with. Furthermore, this is a task the teacher has to fulfill every day anew. No lesson is the same, and today your class can be totally different than the day before. Students' attitude and participation in the classroom can fall from astonishing to frustrating within moments. To be aware of the classroom vibe is most crucial to teaching success. Standing in front of the classroom, the teacher has to be able to adapt to the students' condition, to engage with them and to arouse their interest; in short, the teacher has to be aware of his or her audience. As a teacher, you need to be able to open a communicative channel that allows you to convey your message adequately and at the same time reach your students. Both speaker and recipient have to feel comfortable with the channel and must be interested to keep this channel open. When this communicative approach becomes one-sided, the teaching will fail; either the teacher will not be able to perform in a comfortable way, or the students might not be willing to receive. This can be avoided if both sides cooperate with each other by "make[ing] your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged" (Grice 24). Grice talks about five maxims of conversation that need to be respected to provide a fertile ground for conversation.