Finding all sorts of documents, putting them on websites, pairing them, creating activities on them with detailed instructions. Forming student teams to undertake projects. Discovering ways to introduce short theoretical texts. Judging the difficulty level of the same. Annotating and marking up. It is a science and it involves a great deal of code-hacking and administration. Putting out messages. Creating web pages in which all the study questions, for each day, are gathered together, and others with each week’s readings and visuals, and the weekly question bolded and in red.
When I was an undergraduate professors in departments like History who taught large lectures did something like this. They had slides marching around the walls of the lecture hall, well chosen and well juxtaposed readings, essay questions that worked like springboards, and projects that landed you in the rare books room. But these were courses they kept on giving and developing, so these materials were not developed from the ground up every time.
Literature professors at advanced levels — above the survey — would order a series of books and then come in and talk lucidly about them, in a foreign language. There was a paper at midterm and another at the end, and they did not help you read the texts or force you to do it. They were lecturing from the manuscript of their latest book, so you were very well informed on the most recent scholarship.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 