Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Writing an STP?

Then hie thee hither over to Sisyphus's place, where not only will you pee yourself laughing, but the comments on the kinds of things to focus on in an STP are really helpful. In my grad program, we were asked to write an STP in our TA training course. Our TA training course! Like, our first semester of teaching as TAs! I tried, was told I was doing it totally wrong, and then refused to do the assignment on the grounds that it didn't make sense for me to write such a thing after four weeks in the classroom (especially as I had just come out of working for a few years after Grad School Parts One and Two).

Anyhow, I somehow made it to graduation despite my defiant attitude -- and now need to write an STP. Of course now I have more to reflect on, and I realize I write so much STP-like things in my letter that maybe having the STP there will give me more space in the letter. (At least I might actually have margins -- just kidding.) Here's what I'm doing: I'm taking all the good comments that people suggested at Sisyphus's, turning them into questions, and free-writing. Perhaps that's what I should say in my STP too -- that I believe in tricking one's self into writing at every point. Tee hee.

4 comments:

Sisyphus said...

Hey, no peeing on the blog! Well, only if you clean it up afterwards.

You know, when I first saw this post on Bloglines I thought it was about STDs. And I thought, hell yeah, writing a statement of teaching philosophy is about as enjoyable as getting a nasty rash! But then I realized my misreading. And then I realized I didn't want people to think I'm all rashy and diseased. But then, finally, I left this comment anyway.

In conclusion: no peeing on the blog! Peeing on the STP, however, is acceptable.

gwoertendyke said...

hi ee!!! so glad you're posting here again....i'm in full agreement about sis's hilarity. hope you're doing well, despite long distance love.

Maude said...

oh, yes, i remember that "exercise." my way of refusing to do it was to turn in an incomplete statement and portfolio under the guise of "teaching portfolio in progress" with a nice little author's note explaining why it was in progress and not complete due to the fact that this was the first semester of teaching in the program.

they bought it. it pissed off everyone else in the class, but two in particular don't think very highly of me anyway. can i pee on them?

k8 said...

I'm the freak who enjoys writing the STP and putting together the teaching portfolio. I actually have an online teaching and research portfolio that I am continually adding to.

Yes, I am weird.