The Pissed Off Professor

When I was a student, I always viewed the days just before a new semester as exciting. New books, new binders, new opportunities. . .

As an instructor, I feel that same giddiness as the beginning of a new semester approaches. The newness surrounding books and binders and opportunities are not that different for a teacher.

The course I teach most often is English Writing 300—most of you remember it as English 1A—some of you remember it as Freshman Composition. Regardless of the title, it is the first level of composition that counts towards an AA or a BA/BA it is often the first (and sometimes the only) level of composition that is required to earn an AA or a BA/BS.

The longer I teach the class, the better I get at it, primarily because I make it a point to tweak the course content each semester. This keeps me on my toes, and keeps me engaged. It also means I spend even more time working for free, but that part I am willing to do out of my love for teaching.

This semester, I faced one of the greatest and most common of teaching challenges: the release of a new edition of the primary textbook I use for my course. When textbooks are revised, and a new edition emerges, there are a variety of issues that rear their ugly heads.

First,one must check to see that the core materials one uses are still included in the text.

One must review every handout that corresponds to the text and re-paginate references accordingly.

One must get her hands on several copies before the semester begins:

One for personal use;

One to keep handy and unmarked for various tasks of copying and borrowing;

One to place on reserve in the library for students who won’t get a textbook for reasons good and bad.

One must do this in spite of the fact that book reps take vacations just when instructors need these copies.

One must face the daunting task of transferring every annotation and every bookmark from the old text to the new. (This is a 20+ hour process for me, and working between textbooks is far too clumsy to be an effective classroom alternative.)

During the first two weeks of class, one must ask force each of her students who bought the still-available-as-used-in-the-bookstore-for-less to return said text and buy the correct edition.

Counting the latest edition, the textbook I use has gone through six (6) edition updates in the last eight (8) years. This is as shocking as it is typical. (Note to self: write and publish your own textbook, and wait for the royalties to flood in.)

The looming new textbook addition and my deep need to really try to shake the frustration monkey off of my back led me to make use of a really cool service offered by some of the textbook publishers: choosing personalized course content in a print-on-demand style textbook.

Instead of spending the time getting the new version of my old textbook ready to go, I got down and dirty and created a textbook tailored for my class and the way I teach it. I chose the readings, the rhetoric, the order of content, and best of all, I kept the price under $20.00.

I am thrilled with the results, and I can’t wait to dig into the semester!

[END NOTE: Creating the new book took me just under sixty (60) hours, and the bookstore marked up the price to $25.00.]