In the fall of 2021, I was able to take the honors section of ENGL 382-50, which is grammar, theory, and practice. The class is for education majors to learn the important parts of each piece of grammar, and different techniques to teach these parts of grammar to our future students. Dr. Ruday was the professor for this class and he quickly became one of my favorite professors at Longwood. He was always kind and understanding, and he always related course content to our daily lives so that we would understand the material better. I really loved this class because it was not just a long lecture. We had opportunities to find examples of grammatical concepts in books. We had opportunities to discuss ideas and talk about things that confused us. Dr. Ruday was always flexible and always inclusive. This class taught me a lot about the kind of teacher I want to be. Sometimes the best professor is one that models what type of teacher you should be for your students, and Dr. Ruday did just that for us. We learned so many topics in this class and it allowed me to grasp grammar concepts on a deeper level so that I can effectively teach them to my future students.
Something I am really proud of from this course is the grammatical concepts paper we did at the end of the school year. I was able to meet with Dr. Ruday to talk about my paper and he was very encouraging. It made me want to write more and think of more ideas, so I did just that. After all, I produced a paper and some ideas that I am genuinely proud of. I look forward to incorporating so many ideas from this class into my future classroom. I feel really lucky to have been able to be in this class.