Survey of Literature Frequently Asked Questions

This year we're going to be exploring a lot of questions. Here are a few students posed to me about the class. If you've got more, post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

Questions about Mr. Shakur

• Where did you teach before ChiArts? (1st) Before I came to Chicago, I taught Creative Writing and Introduction to Composition at Indiana University. After that, I taught for two years at the Academy of Communications and Technology Charter School.
• Where are you from? (1st) I grew up mostly in Oakland and Berkeley, California. However, I’ve lived in Minneapolis, MN; Baltimore, MD; and Bloomington, IN .
• What’s your favorite food? (5th) I’m fond of pizza
• Why did you want to be an English teacher? (5th)  I love to help people explore literature and ideas. I also like working with kids.
• Are you a strict teacher? (5th) I’ve been told that I am, but I don’t think of myself that way. I like class to be focused, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.
• Who’s your favorite musician? (5th) Stevie Wonder
• How old are you? (5th) 35
• Did you have a good first day of school? (5th) The first day is always a bit of a blur, but I did enjoy meeting all my students.
• Do you enjoy ChiArts as a teacher? (4th) The students are the best part of what I do. I think ChiArts students are some of the best in all of Chicago. They certainly work as hard as anyone.
• What are your expectations? (4th) I expect caring. I expect hard work. I expect integrity. I expect creativity. I expect these things from myself and my students.
• What is your motto for teaching? (5th) I don’t know if I have one, but I’ve posted some of my favorite quotes around class.
• What type of music do you listen to? (5th) A lot of different stuff. R&B, Classic rock, Hip-hop, Jazz, even some country. Pretty much anything that's funky.
• What was your favorite subject as a kid?(1st) Growing up, I had to say that English and Social Studies were my favs.

Questions about curriculum:

• Why is this class called Survey of Literature instead of English? (1st) A survey is designed to give you a wide range of something. Survey of Literature will expose you to a variety of forms of literature (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama)
• Will your class challenge us individually or the whole class holistically? (1st) Ideally, challenge will be designed for both class and individual.
• Are we going to be doing creative writing in this class? (2nd) If you’re talking about stories and poems, yes. Our current unit will culminate in a personal story from your life. We will actually have a poetry unit in the Spring.
• Will we take field trips? (2nd) I don’t have any planned right now. But, we’ll see. I am trying to get us a guest speaker for our 2nd unit.
• Do you have any fun activities planned? (2nd) Yes.
• Am I going to be challenged? (2nd) Yes.
• Is this class fun to learn in? (2nd) I guess it depends on what “fun” is for you.
• Will it be fun and educational? (4th) I think so.
• Are you going to always give lectures? (5th) No. I want to make learning more interactive for you and a lot of time lectures don’t do that well enough.
• Will we watch a movie after we read the book? (4th) Probably not. We might watch a few clips, but there’s not a lot of time to watch a movie.
• What books will we be reading? (5th) Our America, Night, Fahrenheit 451, Romeo and Juliet, and various short stories/poems.
• Do we get a lot of tests? (2nd) There will be a variety of assessments.
• How much homework do you think we get in a month? (2nd) I would plan on at least one hour a night.
• Will we get a lot of homework? Do you give out tons of homework every single class? (2nd)
• Will you have us stand up and read in front of class? (2nd) Public speaking is an essential part of being prepared for college, so there will be times where you’ll be expected to speak in front of class. I’m not a fan of putting people on the spot without preparing them, so we’ll work on it.
• What is the most common thing we’ll be learning in this class? (2nd) Although this is called Survey of Literature, I regard my class as mostly a thinking class. I will help you increase your ability to think critically.  

Questions about work:

• Will we have a lot of reading work to boost up our vocabulary and how much will you give? (4th) We will focus quite a bit on vocabulary this year. There will be work.
• Will we learn Greek and Latin roots? (1st) We will talk more about these.
• Is there going to be tons of reading we will have in this class? (4th) Depends on how you measure a “ton”.
• Do you give out extra-credit? (4th) I do. If a student wants to pursue studies above and beyond what’s expected, I’m willing to support that with extra-credit.
• How do you grade the homework? (4th)
• Homework counts for 15% of your final grade.
• How does late work operate? (5th)
• Do we get homework every day? (4th)
• Homework will be posted on the front board. You can count on getting some kind of work every class.
• What’s the final going to be like? (4th)
• The first semester final will be given in January and it will probably consist mostly of multiple choice and short answer responses.
• Why am I in this class? (5th)
• I hope, to learn.
• Should we expect the unexpected this year? (5th)
• Depends on what you’re expecting.
• Will we be writing in cursive? (5th)
• I don’t require it, but I do want writing to be legible.
• Are we going to be able to write articles about the things we read?(1st)
• I’m not sure what you mean by articles, but you will be responding in writing to much of what we read.
• Will we look at videos in Survey of Literature? (1st)
• Certainly. We don’t have a lot of class time to watch longer pieces, but we’ll be looking critically at some shorter videos in class.
• Will there be a lot of group projects? (1st)
• You will be asked to work in collaboration with classmates.
• Can I still get an A in this class even if I didn’t complete my homework once? (1st)
• Certainly. Remember that completing homework is an important part of learning the material, but a single homework assignment is just one small part of computing your overall grade.
• When you say double spaced for the essay, is that only for typing or do you want us to skip lines on paper? (1st) When I want assignments typed, I will be sure to specify.