Dr. Steve Sherwood, Director of the W. L. Adams Center for Writing at TCU
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
TCU Campus Store, Rm. 208
The goal of this workshop is to offer guidelines on how to avoid many of the pitfalls of humor while adding positive uses to instructors’ teaching tools. The workshop will include a brief review of humor theories, practical uses of humor, and “rhetorical proprieties” that once guided classical figures, such as Cicero, in their use of wit. Such principles may help contemporary instructors decide if or when to resort to humor.
Participants will have the opportunity to discuss situations in which their use of humor in teaching situations succeeded, fell flat, or even wounded a student and, as a group, try to figure out why.
The workshop will conclude with a discussion of the positive and productive ways to use humor such as building rapport with students, rising above embarrassing moments, softening criticism, and stimulating creative thinking.
Steve Sherwood