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‘Risk’ attracts Paul Kameen to teaching undergraduates

      The risk inherent in teaching entry-level undergraduate students intrigues Paul Kameen, English.  Kameen is driven by a sense of challenge, which excites him even after more than 20 years of teaching. “What makes teaching interesting is the risk that is involved.  I want to accomplish something; I want to be engaged and excited.  This means there’s something at stake all the time: I can succeed or fail at any particular moment.”

      Kameen uses similar approaches in his General Writing and creative writing courses. “I want students to see that writing is a valuable intellectual enterprise and that they are competent to engage in it.  The teacher has to work harder to engage students in undergraduate classes because entry-level students often lack confidence and tend to defer to an outside ‘authority.’  Many of them are initially skeptical about what a required writing course has to offer them and about their own talents.  So the challenge is to persuade students that there’s something of real value that they can gain from being in class and that I’m willing to invest in them to achieve that goal.”

Critical Interactions

      “Students don’t necessarily have an investment in what university courses offer,” Kameen asserts.  “I find that undergraduates want to learn something that they will find interesting and valuable, but they don’t necessarily believe that will happen.  However, once they see that is possible, they can become animated.  They can be open to new things and to the possibility of changing their views.  Of course, this doesn’t happen 100 percent of the time, but it happens enough that teaching is a pleasant experience for me.” 

      Kameen views his relationship with a class “like a relationship that you build with a person.”  His interactions with the class and individual students are critical.  “I’m concerned with having an interesting intellectual conversation with other people.  Students are perfectly well qualified to have that kind of conversation, even though they may not realize it.” Kameen’s classes include “a lot of discussion, a lot of peer interaction.”  His methodologies have three basic components that foster these interactions: asking questions, listening carefully, and communicating high expectations. 

  “I spend a great deal of time thinking about what questions I’m going to ask about reading and writing assignments.  If I can think of two good questions for each class, it makes a difference.  Then, I listen to what students say.  Sometimes I have to almost force students to talk and ask questions, so they will find that they feel comfortable doing so.  Finally, when I read student papers, I focus on a few things that each student can manage at a time.  I keep in mind the next level that each student can attain with a particular paper.  Then we go through the process over again.

High Expectations 

      Kameen expects much from his students: “I think it’s important to set the highest expectations that I can imagine.   The way to help students reach deeper levels as writers and thinkers is to ask them to read difficult text, write full papers, and carry on extended conversations.  Most of them think they can’t do this at the beginning, but I make a point of being positive in my responses.  I focus on what they’re doing well and find ways to build around it.”

      “They don’t realize at first that much of good writing comes from the revision process,” Kameen continues.  “I persuade them of that and give them the skills to do it so that they do not feel they need to depend on outside experts.  This invests them with authority over their own discourse to think what they want to think and to say what they want to say.”

    Kameen learns his students’ names and tries to get to know them as individuals.  “I want them to know they can approach me if they have a problem with the course.  Inevitably, each semester there are students who are distressed about their grades, the difficulty of the material, or what they perceive as ‘boredom’ with the course.  I try to listen to the underlying issues and to encourage students to work through them.  Most important, I try to be honest in my responses.”

            Kameen says that although he rarely sees entry-level undergraduates again after a course, “I have faith that there’s an effect that I have on people.”