Two reviews of First Day to Final Grade 1. Excellent Resource for the Graduate Student TA, January 2, 2001 Reviewer: Sam Sommers "ssommers@umich.edu" (Ann Arbor, MI USA) Considering that universities are relying more and more on graduate student instruction these days, I often wondered why none of the books I saw about teaching were directed towards grad students. Curzan & Damour's book fills that need and offers useful suggestions that will be appreciated by graduate student instructors and the faculty that supervise them. The strength of the book is that the authors clearly speak from personal experience about the issues unique to graduate student instructors. They give useful advice that ranges from the broad (how to lead discussions, how to grade a paper) to the more specific yet nevertheless important (how to dress, how to respond to student emails). That this is a book designed specifically for grad student teachers is demonstrated by coverage of topics such as how to maintain respect and authority in the classroom even though you might only be a few years older than your students, and how to deal with requests from students to socialize with them. I read the book before my first semester of graduate teaching, and I would highly recommend that others do the same. And anyone who supervises or works with graduate student instructors should consider getting the book for them as part of their training/development as teachers. As I said earlier, this book fits an important need given the growing number of courses taught by grad students, and it does so in an easy-to-read and very practically-useful manner. I've used the book in my own training, and as I move on to a faculty career, I will incorporate it into my work with other graduate students. 2. Bryn Mawr Classical Review Review Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2001.01.06 Anne Curzan, Lisa Damour, First Day to Final Grade: A Graduate Student's Guide to Teaching. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Pp. vii, 197. ISBN 0-472-0672-X. $16.95. Reviewed by James Zetzel, Columbia University (zetzel@columbia.edu) Long ago, when I was an undergraduate, one of my graduate student friends was very upset to be offered a teaching assistantship: they were, he felt, distinctly second best to fellowships; it must mean that the department had a low opinion of him. In fact, he was wrong about that: they reconsidered and gave him a fellowship. But he was certainly right to believe that TAs were felt to be a lower form of organism by the faculty: since many of them avoided teaching (and students) as much as they could, they passed on that attitude to their own students. But that was in the days when highly recommended graduate students might get a job without even an interview, when no one outside the School of Education thought much about the practical work of teaching that we are paid to do, when the very idea of students evaluating their teachers was anathema. Things have changed, and indeed they changed very fast. As soon as the job shortage began in the early 70s, it dawned on graduate students (and their teachers) that some teaching experience might in fact be an advantage in seeking employment; and, as the financial difficulties of universities increased, they realized that TAs were a talented and (more important) inexpensive means of stretching the instructional budget. (Of course, since then the screw has turned one more time, and universities realize that adjuncts cost less than graduate students.) Be that as it may, teaching has been an integral part of graduate education for many years now, and no responsible university would attempt to send its students into the real world without some classroom experience--nor would any responsible college hire someone who had never taught. Despite that, in most of the universities that I know remarkably little has been done until recently to train graduate students in the practical work of teaching. When I first taught as a graduate student, I was given a class roster and a copy of the textbook and told where my classroom was; after that, I fended for myself--with the obvious result that my students had to give me a considerable amount of on-the-job training. These days, however, teaching is taken more seriously: undergraduates and their families are paying far too much money to put them in the hands of pure amateurs, however intelligent and enthusiastic they may be. A few years ago, I gave a course on teaching methods for Classics graduate students; and for the past year and a half I have been running a pedagogical seminar for the graduate Preceptors in Contemporary Civilization, a core course on philosophical, political, and social issues and texts from Plato to the present, which they teach entirely in sections under their own direction. Since I am formally untrained as a teacher of classics, not to mention as a teacher of teachers of philosophy and politics, I was eager to read (and therefore to review) Curzan and Damour's guide to graduate teaching, and, although I have some reservations about it (see below), it is useful and intelligent enough that I will probably order copies for next year's Preceptors and urge various deans and departments to do likewise. Introductions to teaching tend to come in three flavors (sometimes blended): the School-of-Education general theories of pedagogy; practical guides to running a class; and detailed manuals for teaching particular subjects or texts. First Day to Final Grade is very definitely not the last kind, and it has blessedly (to my taste) little of the first. It is as straightforward as its title. On many topics, I was happy to see that it matches some of the advice I give my own staff. On the subject of the first class, it reminds new teachers to look at the classroom before the first class; to figure out what you want students to call you; to decide what to wear. It gives advice on how to establish your role and persona in a classroom; how to record grades and attendance; what to put on your syllabus; how to organize a plan for a class and how to run a discussion or organize a lecture; how to use a blackboard or to organize showing a film or bringing in a guest speaker. They get some small but important details absolutely right, with great common sense: never return a paper at the beginning of a class; never leave graded papers or exams in a box outside your office; never give out your home telephone number (use email). These are nuts-and-bolts matters, not lofty theoretical issues--but getting them wrong can really mess up a semester. C. and D. have great good sense: they rarely prescribe what to do but point out the advantages and drawbacks of various approaches. Beyond that, they deal intelligently and lucidly with some much more difficult issues: problems of ethnicity, gender, and religion; how to establish a good relationship with your supervisor (or the head of the course, if you are teaching sections) and what to ask of her/him; how to deal with hostile students or complaints about grading; how to deal with sexual harassment (in either direction) and how to avoid excessive familiarity with your students. They are very firm on all these issues and more (including plagiarism): the decency, common sense and thought that have gone into this book are apparent throughout.... Even when I think it wrong, I found it reasonable, and the exposition was so balanced that the authors helped me focus my disagreements: they are clearly good teachers, in print as in the classroom. And I learned a few good tricks that I may use myself. The bibliographies that the authors give after every chapter make it clear that there are other similar manuals for new teachers available, but I have not read them and can not make comparisons. This one, anyway, is worth reading, owning, and passing on to others who are either new teachers themselves or are responsible for training or supervising graduate instructors. As soon as I finish this review, I will lend the book to the Dean, and it will go in the book order for my pedagogy seminar next fall. That way, I can spend more time on how to teach Plato, and less time on how to teach.