Joseph Pellegrino
Assistant Professor
Literature & Philosophy

Joseph Pellegrino

Teaching Philosophy

After many years of teaching at different regional comprehensive universities, I must admit that my philosophy of teaching has changed since I started full-time work in the academy. I began teaching at the postsecondary level in 1981, where my introduction to the profession was a book on a desk and a note that said, "Good Luck!" Since then, I’d like to think I have made myself into a good teacher. I am very interested in innovative methods in the classroom, especially the use of new technologies, team teaching, and interdisciplinary courses. One of my best classroom experiences was a team-taught class on the history and literature of the American conflict in Vietnam; on days when I wasn't teaching, I could just sit and take notes about the history.

Here at Southern, I teach postcolonial literature and Irish Studies. Since most of our students are a bit fuzzy about the historical and cultural contexts in which the texts we are studying have been produced, I spend a great deal of time situating texts in those contexts. I’d like to say that I explicitly give students a methodology for reading texts, but I’m not sure that I can make such a broad claim. I try to demonstrate various ways of reading, trying on critical optics with which to address each text, always asking the same question, “Does this way of reading, does this interpretation, offer a richer understanding of the text, and therefore of our world?”

In the end, I think that students in literature classes, especially in lower-division courses, are led to the teacher first, then to the material. Once our passion for the text has hooked them, we must be like John the Baptist; decreasing while the material increases. I do not mean to say that we work only in service to the text, but our excitement, our commitment, our passion for the material is what is primarily communicated to the students. Of course, we must also teach our students how to communicate effectively, how to structure a decent argument and how to present their ideas with clarity and a sense of overall structure. The acts of reading and writing about that reading are intertwined. This assessment of student work is the unglamorous side of teaching, but it's critical. I think, for most of us, we teach for free, but we get paid to grade.

Using Pre-Class Responses
I've been using Pre-Class Responses (PCRs) in lieu of papers in my classes since I first heard of them in a 1998 workshop given by Barbara Walvoord, Professor Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. They've been a great help for me. For every day of class, I give the students a series of questions concerning the reading for that day, which they must answer. [More on PCRs and "Just-in-Time Teaching"]

Here's what I tell students about them on the syllabus:

Below you will find a series of questions addressing every reading assignment. You should answer these questions and make a copy of your answers. You will turn in one copy of your responses prior to every class. The other you will keep with you; it will become the basis of your notes for the day as you expand and correct it. These will also serve as fodder for exam questions.

Your answers will be graded not for correctness, or even completeness, but for good-faith effort. That is, you do not necessarily need to come up with a correct answer to a question (in fact, there may not be a correct answer to certain questions), you only need to show me that you engaged the text in a careful and thoughtful attempt to answer the question.

In terms of length, you should think about each set of answers being at least 500 words long. That’s a full page in single-space 12-point proportional spacing type.

Joe’s Helpful Hints:
Look over the questions before you do the reading. They will focus your attention throughout the text, and perhaps guide your reading and interpretation.

Don’t get behind in these. I know that this is easier said than done, but one of the functions of these is to make sure that you’re not reading texts for the first time on the night before the final.

I am not interested in what I have to say about these texts. I already know what I have to say about them. I am interested in your reading, your interpretation and understanding of these works. So don’t parrot back what you may have heard in class, unless it informs your personal reading.

The Nitty-Gritty

The default grade for these is a 6. That is, a 6 equals 100%. But if a student gives a particularly insightful answer to a question, or generates a significant amount of text, I give a 7, which is above 100%. Build up enough PCRs with a 7 on them, and you can punt one of the exams and not have it dramatically affect your grade. This is a great motivator for students.

Reading and grading these is quick. I can get through each one of them in a minute or so, and usually the only thing I mark on them is a number, although I will occasionally note a good idea or ask a question or two.

The Pros
PCRs (Pre-class Responses) get students writing.

Students gain a deeper understanding of a text, and they're able to articulate that understanding better, if they write about it. In my World Lit classes, for example, students produce and are graded on about 50 pages of double-spaced text per semester. If I assigned three short papers and one long paper (which is a heavy writing load for a general education class), students would be writing at most 40 pages of text per semester. But the little bit of writing every distributes the workload so it seems far less onerous to the students.

They increase student participation.

If discussion lags in the class, I can always just ask a question from the PCRs for that day, and I know that everyone has considered it, so I can feel free to call on anyone and get a decent answer.

They make students read.

Students have to keep up with the reading in order to do well on their PCRs. Since they're such a big part of their final grade in the class, the students have a greater incentive to actually read and write about their reading.

They help students on exams.

Students don't usually cram for exams, because they've distributed their work throughout the semester. I don't usually see students trying to read a couple hundred pages of text in the days before an exam. Also, because the PCRs are weighted so heavily (usually anywhere from 35% to 45% of a student's final grade), exams are weighted less, so students don’t' get too anxious about them.

They offer a better measure of student performance.

They're a measure of performance over the semester, not just at certain points during that semester. A distributed workload also means a distributed assessment.

They break up and minimize the marking of papers for a particular class.

I don't have to mark PCRs heavily. I read them and grade them, as the instructions say, for proof that the student has read and engaged with the text.

You're not swamped with grading at the end of the semester.

As A.E. Housman said, "Mithridates, he died old." I don't think he was talking about grading, but he might as well have been.

The Cons

Students bridle at them.

It is only in hindsight that students see the benefit of PCRs. While they're in the middle of it, the task may appear Sisyphysian to them, but by the end of their semester, when they see their peers all cranking out long papers, they appreciate the PCRs. When they begin to study for their exams and realize that they don't need to catch up on their reading, and they have many of the main points I covered in class already in their PCRs, they're pretty happy.

They chug along, even when other assignments are due.

I have a set or PCRs due almost every class period, so no matter what else is going on, students are writing. Of course, they don't like that too much.

You have to write the questions.

Obviously, you need to generate the questions, centered on what you're going to cover that day. This leads us to the next point . . .

You have to know what you're doing every day, and stick to it.

I like to give my students all the questions and a detailed calendar for them on the first day of class. So I have to map out the semester, sticking relentlessly to the schedule I set up. This way of thinking about the class is obviously not for everyone.

You're reading more (but grading less).

While I don't find a half an hour or so of reading per section onerous, many may.

Contact Information
email: jpellegrino@GeorgiaSouthern.edu