Behind the Textbook: Student Workers

[barclay_barrios]

I try not to think about all the work still to be done on Emerging, particularly in terms of the apparatus. Speaking solely in terms of numbers, the revised edition is about double the size of the previous one. That is, we’re adding in so much that it’s almost like doing a whole new book. I’m adopting a strategy I used the first time around: enlisting graduate students to help. All of these students are also teachers in the program; they’ve also all been a part of this revision project from the start by helping me to find, evaluate, and test new readings. For these graduate students, this is all valuable CV experience (and when possible it’s also a little extra cash); for me, it’s the collaborative help I need to get everything done in time. But in spite of all their help, everything still needs to pass by my eyes so the work load, while lightened, remains. But I know I couldn’t do it at all without those students. In a grad program with only a two-year MA or three-year MFA, we don’t often have opportunities for students to fill out their CVs. I wonder, how do you offer students professional and professionalizing opportunities at either the grad or undergrad level?