Assigning your own work

I still don't know what I think about the value of assigning my own work in grad seminars. I do it, but feel a bit weird about it. Yesterday when I looked at what's coming up on the syllabus, I realized that students are reading my work two weeks in a row. Yikes! In both cases there is a logical fit as far as the relationship of my work to the topics we are discussing, but still -- maybe a bit too much Finnegan? When I was a doctoral student faculty never assigned their own work. They never said why they didn't, but I wondered if perhaps they thought it was too self-promoting or just plain "unseemly." Funny thing, though: they often assigned one another's. That sometimes led to some, um, interesting discussions in seminar.

Colleagues I've talked to about this question are divided. Some have no problem with it, or feel that it would be weirder not to assign their own work if they are teaching topics with which they are prominently associated. Others have told me they never do it, mainly because students don't engage the work as critically as they might if it weren't the professor's. I have had both experiences, as well as an additional one: assigning my own work and then not being there for the actual discussion. Several years ago I woke up puking uncontrollably on seminar day. Two students were scheduled to lead discussion that day, so rather than cancel class I urged them all to meet without me. They did, and had what was described to me later by another student as "one of the best classes of the semester." So there you go.

Comments

[Joshie Juice]

Yah: I'm ambivalent about this too.

Right now I've resolved the problem by only assigning my work here and there to undergraduates.

So far I cannot bring myself to assign my own work for grad seminars. Sometimes I will upload something to blackboard and tell 'em that it's there, my lecture is based on it, etc., but it's "optional."

And sometimes my lecture literally IS an essay I wrote, so I don't assign it because there'd be no point in lecturing about it.

But yeah: weird. I do know that while assigning one's own articles may feel a little icky, assigning one's book is uber-icky. I cannot imagine doing that.

Now: I reckon your work will be assigned and circulated for your impending talk. Certinaly that's ok, cause you're here in your capacity as a "rock star." Fans need to lern yer songs ;-)

[caraf]

Yeah, Joshie, book is a whole other thing entirely. One of our former grad students apparently has assigned my book to his students, which is cool. But my initial response was, "Oh god, don't make them buy it!" 'Course, now I might actually see royalties -- like, enough to buy lunch at McDonald's or something.

Re: my visit, I can't wait to be your guest star. But I strongly advise you against encouraging me to sing. Unless you're going to supply earplugs.

[dhawhee]

be sure to take your star guitar!

[caraf]

Dear readers, dhawhee would be referring to this truly awesome item, which is currently hanging on the coat rack in my office: http://caraf.blogs.com/caraf/2006/11/sundays_are_nic.html

[Belle The Wonder Dog]

Perhaps CST's own Prof Austin would chime in here (if he's not dead from walking three flights of stairs in Aquinas Hall - while smoking about the 40th cigarette of the day). All the Logic classes had to use his textbook.